Poor performances, weak material and clunky development  Eastwood being a gruff and watchable lead cannot redeem the many problems here

Rating: Null/10 (17 February 2009)

Having been recently widowed, Korean war veteran Walt Kowalski finds himself all alone in a community that has seen all his former neighbours replaced with members of the Hmong community. Racist, aggressive, distant from his family, Walt is living out his days with beer on his porch, watching the world go by with a gruff sense of disgust. When he finds his neighbour's son trying to steal his car  a prize 1972 Gran Torino  Walt finds his hatred justified but, when he stands up to the gang that had forced Thao into the crime, he is hailed as a local hero by his neighbours and finds himself drawn into the life of Thao and his family.
Gran Torino is one of the films that benefited from the Oscar buzz around one certain aspect. Much like Mickey Rourke's performance made people think that The Wrestler was perhaps a better all round film than it was, so talk of an acting Oscar for Eastwood has put this film into the public mind as being "Oscar-worthy", even if that has been knocked into a cocked hat before it reached the UK. This perception is the only thing I can think of that has motivated so many IMDb users to vote so highly on this title (well, that and the fact that some users will vote 10 or 0 and nothing in between) because this is not a particularly good film by any means. If you read the boards all you will hear about is the standard of acting being a problem but for me the problems start with the script. You see this is a film that really needs convincing and careful character development to make it work. Sadly this is not what we get as the film is written in steps without a lot of attention to getting between these steps in a way that feels real or convincing. The overall arch of the film is engaging in these steps and I did not have an issue with the actual plot but too often it just feels clunky and clumsy in the writing and it gets weaker and weaker as it goes on. Those doubting my concerns over Walt's transformation being rushed and unconvincing can surely not have doubts over the minor characters  the priest talking to Walt towards the end of the film is perhaps one of the worst written changes in character I've seen! As director, Eastwood cannot fix the problems with the script but he is almost good enough to cover it in his own performance. He does this by being what we already know he is  a big gruff presence that can effortlessly fill a cinema screen. This makes him watchable but the material limits him and fortunately the Oscar voters have not been taken in by sentimentality on this occasion. By comparison though he is fantastic because the commendable idea of casting Hmong actors in their debut performances backfires badly with key players failing to deliver. Bee Vang's Thao doesn't have anything like the range required  he is OK when being natural but anything more demanding is flat. Ahney Her's Sue doesn't even really manage that and, while a "nice" presence she doesn't feel natural and I didn't engage with her or see why Walt would. This problem is not so obvious in the rest of cast they are mostly playing clichés or just hanging around. One person without the excuse of language or inexperience is Carley who is pretty awful but in fairness is given probably the weakest material out of everyone.
The whole thing is a really weak film that sums it all up perfectly with a terrible song with terrible singing from Eastwood. This is the final misjudgement of many but the root of it all is the script which takes a basic premise and delivers it in chunky blocks that don't really scan and pushes the viewer away when it should draw them in. Things that should have an impact don't really work because of this and, although Eastwood is a solid presence, he cannot find much to really work with. The performances outside of him are roundly poor and the main players lack the range to deliver when required. The end result is a really poor film and it is embarrassing to see so many users here stepping it claiming it as a piece of greatest  see it for yourself if you wish, but let me assure you it is nothing of the sort, no matter how much I tried to go with it.