Suggests that people have the capacity to change

Rating: 8/10 (15 February 2009)

Walt Kowalski is a retired autoworker and Korean War veteran living in a decaying neighborhood near Detroit, Michigan in Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino. Like Dirty Harry and Bill Munny before him, Kowalski (Eastwood) is an individualist who answers to no one and whose racism and anti-social behavior is the way he deals with frustration, in this case, minorities and Asian immigrants in the community. When local gangs threaten Thao Vang Lor (Bee Vang), the young son of a large family of Hmong immigrants from Southeast Asia, however, Kowalski's cranky individualism is challenged in a way that compels him to reach out and transcend his misanthropic veneer.
The film opens with Kowalski at the funeral of his wife showing disdain for the manners of his two grandsons. His scowling and growling carries over to the young priest, Father Janovich (Christopher Carley) who promised Walt's wife that he would look after him after her death and make him go to confession. Kowalski abruptly dismisses Janovich, saying that he knows nothing about life and death and telling him: "I confess that I have no desire to confess to a boy just out of the seminary!" Walt's prickly attitude is equally directed to his two sons and especially to his neighbors, a Hmong family consisting of a grandmother, mother, and her two children, Sue (Ahney Her), and Thao. Walt is an equal opportunity bigot, calling the members of the family everything from pagans to gooks and other choice epithets unsuitable for print.
When pressure to join an Asian gang prompts Thao to try and steal Kowalski's immaculately maintained 1972 Gran Torino, Walt discovers him in his garage and menacingly points a rifle in his face. Later, however, the old man flashes his M-1 rifle to protect Thao from being hurt in a gang disturbance that spills over onto his lawn and, in gratitude his neighbors bring food and flowers. Later, Sue invites him to their house for food and drink which he accepts, discovering in the process that he has more in common with these people than with members of his own family. Reluctantly, Walt finds himself becoming more and more involved with his Hmong neighbors and seems to drop his posturing when he is around Sue who acts as a guide and translator.
He rises to the occasion by helping Thao make amends for his attempted larceny by giving him jobs to do around his house, teaching him about tools, and using his contacts from having worked for thirty years at a Ford plant to help him get a job with a construction company. Local thugs are not finished, however, and when Sue is assaulted and Thao is again threatened, it becomes time for a final confrontation with the gang and for Walt, never answerable to anyone except himself, a final grand gesture. Gran Torino is impeccably acted by the entire cast, including some who have never acted before and Eastwood's performance is one of his best.
To its credit, the film suggests that people have the capacity to change and transform their life. As Walt discovers the humanity of his neighbors, he gets in touch with his own as well. Unfortunately, the film tends to glorify "rugged individualism" and vigilantism at the expense of acting responsibly in a community. Walt's idea of "manning up" young Thao is to train him to use ethnic epithets when dealing with local merchants as in the scene where Thao is put through the paces with a local barber. It does not occur to Eastwood, however, that acting manly might lie more in working to ameliorate the problems that have led to the deterioration of the neighborhood than in macho posturing or hurling insults.