"Gran Torino"

I don't want to give a whole lot away about this picture, as I suspect this blog is frequented by more than a few good Eastwood men and women who would appreciate the opportunity to experience it from as fresh a perspective as possible. Does it give too much away to say that Gran Torino, which Eastwood stars in and directed, represents, for this critic at least, the final film in a trilogy that began with Unforgiven and continued with A Perfect World? No? Good. Let me then add that I found the film a very fine conclusion indeed, to the trilogy I just made up.(Although I don't think I'll be the last to cite those two other pictures.)

As you may have heard, Eastwood here plays a guy named Walt Kowalski, a Korean war vet and retired Ford assembly line worker living in an unspecified Michigan quasi-suburb. He's tough as nails, still (or so he'd like everyone to believe),cranky as fuck, recently widowed and thoroughly alienated from his kids and grandkids. In other news, his neighborhood seems to be getting overrun by Hmong immigrants. Did I mention Walt's a bigot, too? Indeed he is, and he doesn't care much for his new "gook" neighbors. When Thao, the young, introverted son of the Hmong family next door reluctantly participates in a gang initiation by trying to jack Kowalski's mint condition '72 Gran Torino, Kowalski gets out his old army rifle and goes—well, there's no other way of putting it—all Dirty Harry on the kid, albeit without, you know, killing him. He hones that act on varied other miscreants in the area, and along the way winds up forging a tentative friendship with Sue, Thao's older sister. Which leads to a more intense involvement with her family, with Sue acting as tour guide to Hmong traditions and beliefs. But the aforementioned gang is insistent. As is the young priest who promised Walt's late wife he's look out for the widower, specifically with regard to getting him to go to confession. These varied forces converge to force Walt, who's still haunted by memories of war, to ponder going to war again. 

I may have given away too much already. So I'll stop with the plot specifics and say that I was mightily impressed by Gran Torino, and that I also understand the rather contradictory opinions that are already flooding the intertubes. After the screening, a critic friend who also dug the picture mentioned that it reminded him a bit of a Sam Fuller film. Yes. Eastwood is a more nuanced filmmaker than the late, great, Sam, but Gran Torino does have an old-fashioned bluntness and sincerity that runs counter to quite a few contemporary modes. In the early portion of the film, Eastwood's performance skirts caricature, and not narrowly, either—he literally growls to show displeasure. But from there, Eastwood the performer, Eastwood the director, and screenwriter Nick Schenk build. The overblown archetype is revealed as a singularly tortured individual. But Eastwood's plain approach—and it should be noted here that, trailer to the contrary, this is not an action film; it's largely made up of dialogue scenes, and what violence occurs is ugly and brutal and hardly...oops, I'm saying too much again—is so thoroughly out of fashion that it practically invites cynicism from certain parties.  

What's also kind of striking about the picture is that it's actually about something real going on in America, a place that Hollywood movies barely pay any attention to these days. I'm talking about the film's relatively detailed look at Hmong immigration in the American midwest. (The newcomers who play Thao and Sue, Bee Vang and Ahney Her, are extremely sympathetic and unshowy, by the way.)

There's more I'd like to say about the picture, which is still rolling over in my head as I write this. I'll definitely want to address the "I didn't know Clint Eastwood could act" contingent as it emerges. (Short answer: he never couldn't, you dolt.) And I certainly want to mull it over with the Eastwood fans who come around here, once they see it. 

Comments

[B.W.]

Ya know, Dan, I think we should wash our hands of Rob and leave him alone with his overly simplistic, reductive views. As they say on the internet: "Don't feed the troll."

[Dan]

Oh, don't worry, unless he came out with a real corker, I was finished, but I never let that kind of sanctimony lie in film message boards. It's why we have to keep hearing about the brilliance of, well, pick whichever artist you find colossally boring. We'll never be fully rid of the mindset that watching good movies should be an experience not unlike being force-fed bran, but we should quash it where we can.

[brian]

Ok...I have to preface--Eastwood fan in a huge way. In fact, just watched Gran Torino online (shame on me, but I will be going to see this when it goes wide.)

This film was a hoot, was touching, was gruff...was wonderful. Say what you want about it, but to be 78 and still capable of pulling off movies like this? Clint is a once-in-a-lifetime legend.

I am grateful that he is still out there, making movies on either side of the camera. However, I am saddend by the thought that he may "retire" from acting.

If this is indeed the swan song, then what an exit it is. I also want to thank Clint from the bottom of my cranky soul. It has been a fun, amazing ride, and it has been my priviledge to watch his work.

[Vizzo]

It's unfortunate that people with a fake Asian culture like Hmongs are getting this kind of attention. The Hmong's have always loved attention and have been willing to make up a story about themselves to believe it. Back in Asia, they just get their butts kicked. The screenwriter of this movie worked with some Hmongs at a factory once and probably heard all of the fabricated and exaggerated stories that the Hmong elders have made up since coming here and he bought it. Too bad...

[Glenn Kenny]

Vizzo, I'm not sure precisely what your point here is. That, rather than making "Gran Torino," Hollywood ought to make a film that shows Hmongs deservedly getting their asses kicked? What's the point of view you are representing, that's so indolently hostile to the Hmongs? On second thought, don't answer that. Kindly take your campaign against this film somewhere else.

Lovely to see such a message of human brotherhood so close to Christmas!

[Tony Dayoub]

Gran Torino does not disappoint. What a fantastic film, and all the more impressive for it being his second film in 2008.

All the structural problems I had with "Changeling" ( a problem I often have with his films) seem to be missing from the very tight and symettrical "Torino". And you're right, probably his best since "A Perfect World".

I can see its thematic relationship with "Unforgiven", but maybe because it's been a while, I still can't see how it ties into "A Perfect World" beyond what your friend Joseph F. spotlights. Can you explain your take on this a little more?

[Taylor]

Great movie that can be found on http://gottv.blogspot.com