Gran Torino

An aging Korean War vet named Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood), whose wife has recently died, lives in an increasingly run down and low income neighborhood. The people he knew have moved out and a community of Hmong have moved in. Walt is old, grizzled, disappointed in his children and harboring a whole lot of racist resentment towards his neighbors. He spends many of his days drinking canned PBR and openly complaining about the state of the neighborhood. The quiet neighbor boy is pressured to join the local gang and his initiation is to steal Walt's prized 1972 Gran Torino. After this fails, the family insists the boy make amends by working for Walt. As Walt interacts with the boy and his sister, the more he connects with them and his prejudice falls away.

Clint Eastwood is pretty damn smart. A strategy he employed last year almost got him another Oscar nomination this year. Last year Eastwood released the early and generally panned Flags of Our Fathers before winning praise for Letters from Iwo Jima later in the year. This year he got Golden Globe nominations and praise for this film his second film after the maligned Changeling. The problem is "Letters" wasn't actually that good. And Gran Torino is good but not great. So pay attention would be award winning filmmakers: release two films, the second being marginally better than the first and you might find yourself nominated.

Admittedly it isn't a terrible film. It has moments and as a friend said to me, only Eastwood could have made this film. This is true, there is so much manipulation of Eastwood's own iconic tough guy image that you buy into Walt. for the most part. See I had two major problems with the film. The first might seem trivial but was actually what took me out of the film entirely. See Walt is a tough old son of a bitch Korean War vet who doesn't like change. He swills PBR daily and scowls a lot.

So why, oh why, I ask is there a scene with Walt in a bubble bath? I'm sorry. Nope. Walt Kowalski is not the bubble bath type. I find it impossible to believe even if the film claimed it was left over from his wife and he did it to be reminded. (The film did not offer that explanation, it offered no explanation.) So when we see Walt in the tub with bubbles covering him (no doubt to obscure any possible nudity) I just called shenanigans and the movie lost me completely.

More significant is the messiah complex Mr. Eastwood has in this film. And the end is just silly to watch on account of this. In its defense the film is fairly charming as Walt comes around to having affection for the brother and sister next door but overall its more manipulative than impressive. I admire Eastwood for tweaking his own mythology as Brad Pitt did last year in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. But "Gran Torino" the song at the end during the credits is quite nice and its an experience to hear Clint sing a verse.