No Country for Old Men? Yeah Right!

Rating: 7/10 (24 January 2009)

Clint Eastwood responds to the Coen Brothers' No Country For Old Men with Gran Torino, a film that represents America's senior citizens' strike back. The aging movie star well into his 60's makes it very clear that this is HIS country, and he isn't about to let Koreans into it. Unlike William Butler Yeats (from whom the title "No Country for Old Men" comes), Eastwood refuses to go sailing to Byzantium to escape the hardships of being an old man in a young country full of gang bangers and quiet Asain boys. The movie makes No Country's Tommy Lee Jones look like a pussy; he cannot handle the new violence in America. Well Clint Eastwood certainly can; in fact, he's the one making the violence! GO CLINT! Old people still have their Gran Torinos and their rifles, and they're not afraid to take either out into the street for a joy ride.