It'll go ahead an make your day

Rating: 8/10 (10 January 2009)

If ever you wondered what "Dirty" Harry Callahan would be like in his retirement years, look no further than Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood's glorious acting swan song. If ever there was a performer who could pull off playing a 78 year-old action hero it's Eastwood, who still has the ability to burn holes in the screen with a glare and a scowl.
Set in the "white flight" suburbs of Detroit in which entire neighborhoods have been transformed into immigrant ghettos, Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a retired Ford assembly line worker and grizzled Korean War vet. A walking Rolodex of racial epithets, the recently widowed Kowalski is dismayed to learn that the house next door has been purchased by a Hmong family, and even further ticked to discover that the family's two teenage kids, Sue and Thao, have attracted the attention of a gang of Asian thugs.
For Walt it's as if every demon that's been haunting him since his days of killing "gooks" has come home to roost.
Initially the story unfolds in a crude, almost unrefined fashion, akin to 70s grade B action fare, something that seems out of sync with Eastwood's maturity as a director. However this appears to be a deliberate attempt to establish a bridge between the crudely enjoyable films of Eastwood's salad days, and the smart and cagey movie that this morphs into.
After a few scenes that establish Walt's need to liberate his neighbors from torment of the gang, the story takes a surprising turn as he discovers he has more in common with these "foreigners" than his own kids. Sue and Thao give him a second crack at being a dad and he makes the most it, determined to transform Thao from a "pussy" into a man of respect. It allows Eastwood to slip comfortably into a role similar to Frankie Dunn, the boxing trainer he played to perfection in Million Dollar Baby, and it all comes together to make Gran Torino feel like you've settled into a nice comfy pair of slippers.
Eastwood's his own man, however, and the movie doesn't always follow the formula you'd expect, which is a good thing. The end result is something much cleverer, and far less conventional that your standard revenge flick.
If this is indeed Eastwood's adieu in front of the camera, he definitely picked a high note to exit on.