He ain't heavy, he's my brother

Rating: Null/10 (31 January 2009)

In 1974 Don Siegel directed "The Shootist", a film about an ageing gunslinger (John Wayne) who befriends a family, realises that he's dying of prostate cancer, becomes a mentor to a young boy and finally dies in a gunfight.
Siegel made several films with Clint Eastwood, leading Eastwood to dedicate his 1992 western (Unforgiven) to his old mentor. Flash forward 3 decades and Eastwood releases "Grand Torino", a virtual remake of "The Shootist" and "The Karate Kid".
Here Clint plays Walt Kowalski, a Korean War Veteran who lives in the suburbs of Michigan. Walt is a racist old man who hates his Hmong neighbours, insults his Catholic priest, can't stand his sons and moans about having killed Koreans during the war.
The first half of "Gran Torino" consists of cartoonish gangs harassing vulnerable little girls as they walk home from school. This provides ample opportunities for Walt to leap to the rescue on his surrogate horse, a battered pickup truck. Sillier still is when a young boy (Thao) is bullied by his cousin (Spider) and then harassed throughout the film for refusing to join their gang. Why would any gang want such a nerdy kid? Why would Spider abuse his own cousin? How could such a refusal possibly warrant a drive by shooting, and the other acts of violence portrayed in this film?
From here on the film becomes a rehash of "The Karate Kid", Walt becoming the wise mentor who helps Thao toughen up and become a man. He takes the kid under his wings, teaching him how to speak American, talk to girls, spew racist slurs, do manly yard work and wield a hammer. But Clint's view of masculinity is intentionally satirical, as it's in Walt's bonding sessions with the women next door than he truly becomes a man.
Unfortunately those pesky gang members continue to harass poor Thao. After a violent drive by shooting, Walt decides to call the cops, but apparently this is a breech of the Hmong Code of Silence. As the local Hmong take care of their own affairs and resent the assistance of the cops, it is left to Clint to clean up the streets.
The film ends with Clint provoking the gangsters into committing cold-blooded murder. Clint's sacrifice thus magically shatters the Hmong Code of Silence, causing the local Asian community to report the gangsters to the police. Such a U-turn is implausible, even by Hollywood standards, and serves only to give Clint a redemptive, Christ-like ending.
And so Walt Kowalski, racist, bad father, murderer of Korean soldiers, gives his life to save an Asian family, thereby earning his redemption. It's all rather clichéd, "Gran Torino" another in a long line of post 9/11 blame-taking movies. Films like "Changing Lanes", "House of Sand and Fog", "The Visitor", "Babel", "Little Children", "Crossing Over", "The Interpreter", "Monster's Ball", "The Terminal", "Towelhead" etc all hoped to counter American myopia, suggesting that Americans are not "all alone" or "the centre of the world". These films ooze guilt, are shameful of spoilt Generation Xers who squander inherited luxury and seek to align the white middle class with the marginalized Other.
Far more interesting is the film's critique of masculinity. Michigan was once wealthy and held the flagship factory of Henry Ford, but today is the site of some of the worst poverty in the US. Walt's love for his Gran Torino and the fact that he was once an automotive worker, implies that the fate of Walt and the dying of the industry are intertwined. Though he belongs to a traditionally masculine age (which is slowly withering and dying around him), Walt is impotent when it comes to dealing with his family. He's basically tough on the outside but weak (literally bleeding) on the inside. In contrast, the Hmongs are immigrants who are vulnerable on the outside, whilst at home they have the strength and solidarity that comes from their family unity and traditional values.
To articulate this point, watch how Eastwood treats the two houses in the film. Walt's is spotless on the outside but withered on the inside, whilst the Hmongs' house is a mess on the outside, but packed with an abundance of joy on the inside.
Walt's over-the-top racism and masculinity is an anachronism that hasn't helped him leave his dying neighbourhood, understand his children, religion, properly articulate his emotions, or even tell his son that he's dying. It is in connecting with the Hmong and sacrificing himself, that he is able to evolve.
So the movie walks an interesting line between self-parody and social consciousness, managing to also paint a neat little battle between classic union labour and global capital, a system that has eliminated the American working class, killed off labour unions, and outsourced all jobs to foreigners. But as one character explains to Walt, though the Hmong fought on the American side during the Vietnam War, they were promptly abandoned when the war ended. All ethnicities (Asian and American) are thus equal fodder for exploitation. The Hmong and Walt were used and exploited by American imperialist interests, a fact which Walt ultimately learns. His attitudes toward race and his practise of "patriotism" are therefore products of manipulation. It is in the system's interest to promote racism and intolerance because then the Walk Kowalskis of the world can go fight wars and happily justify it all away with a little racist indoctrination.
7.9/10 – The film doesn't stray far enough from what Siegel did in "The Shootist". Both films feature an ageing tough guy who is urged by a strong woman to break his solitude and mentor a boy who is being drawn into a life of violence. Both films also feature a key scene in a barber shop where our hero "cleans up" and prepares himself for his sacrificial death, along with a sympathetic doctor, priest, tragic ending and countless other similar sequences.
Worth two viewings.