Eastwood Tells Hollywood How To Make Our Movies Punks

Rating: 10/10 (17 January 2009)

The movie is what movies are all about which means excellent storytelling. It is hard to believe that a story so well told has a screen writer with only a few films to his credit and a story teller who Gran Torino is his first writing credit. The writing is very much ahead of the experience of these folks and with Eastwood Acting, Producing & Directing, this film might just be his best triple crown accomplishment.
At 78 years young, Eastwood does not look the same on screen as Dirty Harry did, but he is every bit the professional actor fully matured. This film flows on the screen in a way only a few films made today do.
It begins with Walt Kowolosky (Eastwood) at the church at his wife's funeral. Then it goes on to show his missing relationship with his family. The focus then goes to the neighbors who are a different race and culture but grow to accept Walt for who he is and what he does. Walt is a Korean vet & retired autoworker who helped assemble his Gran Torino, his pride & joy in the film.
The story is very well told as the family next door fills in the void from Walts wife & the detached sons his life has become. It is the last American living in an inner city neighborhood & how he comes to cope with being alone. Walt is plainly ill coughing up blood in the film.
My spoiler is that in a way, this masterpiece of Eastwoods has very much the same type of theme as John Wayne's last film, The Shootist. Where Wayne chose to go out much the Western Hero in a blaze of glory, Eastwood chooses in this film to go out loved by his neighbors for what he did, but still very much the man with no name, only now he has a name to the neighbors while the family has missed it all. Is this the way Clint has chosen to finish his career? To me, this is going out on top.