Gran Torino Serves Up A Vintage Clint Eastwood!

Rating: 9/10 (3 May 2015)

In Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino, he stars as Walt Kowalski, a cantankerous, beer-swilling Korean War veteran and former Ford factory worker who lives in a run-down portion of Detroit ravaged by white flight. Recently widowed, Walt is old-school: He hates his children for driving Japanese trucks and for trying to put him into an assisted-living facility and his grandchildren for their insolence and impropriety. Compounding Walt's loneliness is that he has become a stranger in his hometown; his neighbors all have died or moved away, and a cadre of "dog-eating" Hmong immigrants has taken their place, whom he incessantly disparages. His gruff demeanor and steady stream of racial epithets make him unsociable for his neighbors.
The tension comes to a head when Thao, the teenage boy next door, tries to steal Walt's prized possession - the eponymous Gran Torino, a 1972 vintage Ford automobile - as part of an initiation into a local gang. Unaware that Thao was the would-be thief he chased off the night before, Walt breaks up a fight between the wayward youth and his gangster tormentors that spills onto his yard. Seen as a savior by the Hmong community, he is showered with gifts - much to his displeasure, as they insist that the boy pay for his crime with a lengthy dose of community service under the supervision of Kowalski. Walt reluctantly takes Thao under his wing, and befriends Thao's older sister Sue. The Oriental boy and girl next door make Walt see the good in gooks as we watch this curmudgeonly Scrooge figure open his eyes and mind to the realities of a multicultural America. He quickly discovers he has more in common with his culturally conservative neighbors than his own kin who regard him as an embarrassing dinosaur to be shipped off to a retirement home. However, Gran Torino gradually takes a darker turn and becomes a much more poignant depiction of Kowalski's willingness to seek redemption.
Gran Torino is surprisingly funny; as Walt's icy exterior melts away and culture shock leads to wary respect, one can't help but laugh. With a personality as prickly as his looks - flint-eyed squint, sour puss, scruffy hair - he's a bad-ass old coot, who spits his disapproval at the world. It's an idiosyncratic performance that might easily have descended into comedic caricature. But Clint Eastwood somehow pulls it off with profound pathos and bravado. He also directs with his typically sure hand; the plot moves relentlessly forward on his formidable shoulders, assisted by the slyly hilarious dialogues.
Gran Torino could have become a tediously pious fable about a racist learning the error of his ways, or - in its final act - an audience- pleasing revenge fantasy. But Eastwood bravely avoids both extremes. Gran Torino is vintage 'Dirty Harry' – Reloaded!