Bad Acting, Worse Script.

Rating: 1/10 (30 April 2009)

I know I'm severely in the minority here, but I just feel the need to say this because it completely shocks me that this film is even in the top 250 at all. I mean, I love Clint Eastwood, but this film disappoints me every time I see it. It's not bad--it's abysmal (and don't worry, I'm backing this up--read on).
I'm not saying the film didn't have potential. The idea was solid, and the themes Eastwood was dealing with are excellent. This had the makings of a fantastic film. The thing is, so much about it is done so poorly that it simply doesn't match up.
For starters, "Gran Torino" has some of the absolute worst acting I have ever seen--save for Dane Cook in "Simon Sez." The performance of Bee Vang (Toad) stands out in particular--watching him over-emote, while retaining a certain amount of entertainment value simply for his amateur-istic facial expressions and dialog, brought to mind a middle- school talent show. The role of the priest, played by an uninspired Christopher Carley, is bland enough to fit into an actual sermon. In fact, not one acting performance stood out from the entire cast--even Eastwood's. He did a fine job of presenting himself as the racist war veteran, but there was a complete lack of emotion and human interest from his character.
My biggest problem, however, was with the screenplay itself. The fact is that none of the characters are at all believable because they are written to be that way. Quite literally every character in the script seems to be based entirely on stereotypes (which, in a sense, is fitting, considering that--despite its romanticized ending--the entire film is essentially one long racist tirade. The gang members, for example, seem almost so pitifully inept that it is hard to feel intimidated by them. Walt Kowalski's (Eastwood) family is so painfully over-demonetized that they are drained of any human component whatsoever. The list goes on and on.
Furthermore, the dialog is absolutely painful from beginning to end. The humor of the film is entirely derived from racist comments directed from Eastwood's character. The script is repetitive (yes, we get it, you only eat cats. Ha, ha.) and messy--all of the lines seemed as if they were either trying too hard to be profound or simply seemed completely improvised. Worst of all, the audience can predict literally every twist and turn in the script miles ahead.
I'll give it this--the next-to-last scene where Eastwood's character fights the gang is both one of the most bad-ass and well-done scenes I've seen, and it may well be worth seeing the movie for that alone. Still, I'd recommend avoiding sitting through the rest of it if you can. "Gran Torino" tries to be a plot-driven film with a message, but without the characters and dialog to back it up, it is difficult to suspend disbelief enough to absorb the message.
In short, if you can forgive horrible acting, don't much care for snappy dialog or interesting cinematography, are very racist yourself, or just really, really like Clint Eastwood then this film might be for you. If not, skip it, because unless you are expecting a contrived and largely unbelievable mess, you are sure to be disappointed.