whether or not Eastwood actually has closed his acting career, he's given the audience what they wanted as both director and star in this inviolable satire on racism

Rating: 10/10 (25 November 2009)

With the release of his latest film "Gran Torino", movie icon Clint Eastwood says that this will be the last time he stands in front of a camera but will continue to work in Hollywood as a director. Of course, then again, he said the same thing in 1992 when "Unforgiven" was released and look how long that lasted. But regardless whether Eastwood has or has not retired from acting, he has made an extraordinarily good motion picture and created the perfect character portrait for him to round off his career as an actor.
To make it short, "Gran Torino" is basically a witty satire on racism and gang violence. Eastwood plays Walk Kowalski, a racist Korean War veteran who finds himself with the unfavorable task of reforming a Hmong teenager (Bee Vang) who tried to steal his prized 1972 Gran Torino car after a Hmong gang coaxed him into it. The movie tackles two serious subjects, but does not transform itself into a big serious drama. By contrast, it does something even better. It becomes a satire on them. It uses its deliberately over-the-top vulgarity and foul language to make fun of racism and gangs but at the same time reminds you that both are ugly elements in our world.
For example, the Clint Eastwood character is a racist. He spends the entire half of the movie just putting down and berating his new Chinese neighbors. There's also a scene where he pulls a horribly biased joke with his buddies while they are standing at a bar booth. Eastwood denounces the Hmong teenager whom he's been talked into reforming and the ironic thing is that although the inappropriate handling of this material would easily result in something insulting and offensive, rather, the movie is funny. It does not promote racism or gang violence, it mocks them. And as the movie progresses, and the themes become more serious, Eastwood's character begins to change. In addition, the Hmong in the film are portrayed as they are: a people. They're human beings like everybody, just with a different culture. But they're no more perfect than any other race of people. The gang in the film is the primary example.
Earlier in my review, I said that if Clint Eastwood has decided to end his career as an actor, he did with the perfect character. And he has. This is the sort of character that we've always wanted to see him play. He'll always be remembered as the squinting gunslinger from the Italian Westerns of the 1960s and as the .44 Magnum-wielding cop in "Dirty Harry", but now that he's nearly eighty, he's become gruffer and since "Unforgiven" we've wanted to see him play a grouchy, vulgar yet lovable old man. He plays the kind very well. I can still vividly remember sitting in the theater on opening night, when Eastwood padded out of his house where the Hmong gang was harassing the neighbors, Eastwood raises his service rifle and growls: "Get off my lawn!" I can still remember the cheer the crowd gave and the fists that shot up into the air during that scene. That was the audience yelling for joy, for they realized that we get to see Clint Eastwood play the character we've wanted in the movie we've wanted. Eastwood has promised and delivered.
Eastwood as a director? He's still in tiptop shape. He's still got that eye for casting. He knows that he stands in icon status and people will come to see his movie because he's got top billing. So instead of casting other big-name actors, like many of his other films, he's chosen to cast actors of little or no popularity. In fact, save one or two individuals, none of the Hmong actors had stood in front of a camera before. And the casting, for the most part, is terrific. Bee Vang gives a credible first screen performance as the kid being drawn into a gang. But the supporting character I liked the most was Eastwood's equally vulgar barber played by John Carroll Lynch. Every little scene with them in the barber shop throwing slurs and insults at each other raises a laugh in an instant.
Very rarely these days do we get treated with a real modern masterpiece like "Gran Torino" and when we do it's usually from somebody like Eastwood who has the influence and the balls to make something as daring as this in the 21st century. Every time a little gem like this comes along, the audience embraces and welcomes it. Clint Eastwood has shown to us that although many of his films of recent years have been dark and moody, that he still has the range to make a satirical comedy that nevertheless carries the same message as if he had made it gloomy and serious. Clint Eastwood may be getting up there in his age, but he's still in peak form as a filmmaker.