Film Appreciation Review

Rating: 9/10 (12 April 2012)

We just finished watching "Gran Torino" in our film appreciation class and were asked to create a critique about it. This, in my opinion, is one of the best movies I have ever seen because it presents a topic that is not commonly presented in movies. "Gran Torino" is a movie produced, and directed by Clint Eastwood, so we can tell that it has his characteristic of adding a classic element to the film. This movie shows us the life of a Korean War veteran, Walt Kowalski, who is already retired and lives in a Hmong neighborhood. Throughout the movie we learn a lot about Walt and how he manages to change in order to help those around him.
The movie is about Walt Kowalski, and old, grumpy, conservative, and racist man who lives in a Hmong, middle class neighborhood that has been deteriorated with the passing of time. The main conflict present in this movie is the struggle to overcome racism and to see people as they really are in order to be able to help them. The main characters in this movie are Walt, Thao (his neighbor), Sue, Father Janovich, and Spider. In the movie we can see how Walt meets Thao, a young Hmong teen, who was constantly harassed by his cousin, Spider, and his gang. Thao tries to steal Walt's most prized possession, his 1972 Gran Torino, but gets caught and has to work off his debt. While doing this, Walt puts aside his racist views and his anger and becomes at peace by helping this young man.
The two actors that did a better job than the rest were Clint Eastwood and Christopher Carley. Clint Eastwood played the role of Walt Kowalski, while Carley played the role of Father Janovich. These two actors managed to perform a better job than the rest mostly because they were more experienced and they had a large acting background. In my opinion the ones who acted the worst were Bee Vang and Ahney Her, who played Thao and Sue. These two acted the worst because they were inexperienced actors who lacked proper acting skills; meaning that "Gran Torino" was there first appearance in an audiovisual production.
What I liked most about this movie was probably the acting of Clint Eastwood, because he captures the essence of the character he is playing and gives it all he has to create a believable man with who the audience can relate to. Even though he is full of irreverent, pure, racism, he manages to show it in a tasteful way that only Clint Eastwood could've done. My favorite scene in the whole movie was the ending scene, where Walt shows up to Spider's house to stand up for Thao. Here, he tricks Spider's gang into believing that he had a gun, which led them to shoot and kill Walt. Because of this, the police finally had a concrete reason to put them away in jail for good. In the end, Walt put others in front of himself and acted in a heroic, unselfish way to bring peace to Thao's family, so you could say that Walt sacrificed his life for the well being of Sue and Thao. The only thing that I really didn't like about this movie was the acting of Thao and Sue. It didn't affect the movie that much, except when the scene was focused on them. For example, when Thao is locked up in Walt's basement and he screams out for help, his acting is very poor and takes us out of the plot for a second; its shocking that such an amazing film was stained by the acting of "rookie" actors.
The theme this movie portrays is that good will and the good in people is strong enough to put aside horrible things, such as racism, and allows others to see a person for how he/she really is. This is clearly shown through Walt's life, since he at the beginning was strongly racist and hated people from other races, but towards the end he realizes that they are also humans and that the Hmong have more in common with him than his own sons. I think others might learn a similar theme than me because this theme is very universal, but of course everyone can interpret the theme of this story differently. The genre of this movie is a mixture between suspense and drama, mostly because it keeps us wondering what is going to happen next and it connects us emotionally to Walt Kowalski. This movie shares a similar idea to one of his previous movies, "Million Dollar Baby", since the main character helps a low class person with very little recourses to make him/herself successful and gives him/her a chance to reach their goal, while opening his heart to them.
This movie was directed mostly towards people of the third age, since they might be able to relate to Walt and to some situations he finds himself in, like the realization of their own mortality. I personally would recommend this movie to anyone above the age of 15 because this movie does show some strong scenes and messages. The official MPAA rating of the movie is R because of strong language and violence. My final word about this movie would be that it is a great movie that will be remembered for a long time, or at least by me. It is worth spending your time to see and you wont know that 116 minutes have passed. I give it 5 stars out of 5.
Stefan Engler is a 10th grader in Lincoln School, Costa Rica who likes to play sports and enjoys watching good movies. He has seen many movies, which have given him a criteria of what to expect about others and is currently taking a film appreciation class which is expanding it further more.