Gran Torino will make your day.

Rating: 9/10 (9 November 2009)

We meet Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood), a racist Korean War veteran, living in the suburbs of Detroit, at his wife's funeral. We discover that he is a cranky and grizzled senior, with contempt for his own selfish family, including his sons and their spoilt children. Living next door to Walt is an Asian-American family, including most significantly a young boy named Thao (Bee Vang), who is being harassed by his street gang cousins. The gang attempts to initiate Thao by trying to steal Walt's prized 1972 Gran Torino car from his garage. Walt catches Thao and holds him in great contempt. Yet when he saves Thao's life from the gang one evening he is thanked by the family next door and welcomed into their home.
Gran Torino represents Clint Eastwood's best efforts to shift between humour and drama with emotional punch, as few other directors would attempt. While many assumed that Gran Torino was a pseudo-sequel to the Dirty Harry films, Clint Eastwood has again distanced himself significantly from his iconic character. Both Harry Callaghan and Walt are collectively enforcers and all round tough guys, but this is largely where the similarities end. Rather, Walt - as war veteran and a patriot - remains a contrast to the way in which society has degraded its morals and its values. He is tired and angry with youths – like his grandchildren - are rude and uncaring. Even Walt's own children remain grovelling, selfish and patronising. They wish to send him to a retirement village at one stage in the film.
Eastwood, now reaching his early eighties himself, brings believability to the frailty of this old man at the end of his life. He injects the character with humour through his deadpan and raspy voice, as well his ferocious snarls and growls. It is familiar territory for Eastwood to be playing a cranky old mentor who has seen it all, not too dissimilar to the character he played in Million Dollar Baby (he even argues with a priest here). Yet Walt is more obnoxious and more fearless and uncompromising in his approach to people. It is perhaps a more difficult character because of how unlikable he should be. But Eastwood remains in scintillating form here and is still one of Hollywood's coolest customers. The humour of the film, courtesy of both the script and Eastwood's delivery, makes it difficult to dismiss Walt entirely, despite his prejudices. Walt's wit makes him more tolerable to watch on screen and many of the laughs throughout the film are derived from how blunt and rude he is. Without this humour the character Walt may not have been as likable or given the audience much reason to care about what he does. Similarly, from the beginning of the film as well, it is easy to evoke sympathy and understand why Walt is so grizzled and cranky, given the death of his wife and the selfishness of the people around him. The script has been very smartly thought out and written here.
It is with this slightly lighter tone that the film is never quite as heavy as Million Dollar Baby or Mystic River. Granted there is still an explosive and emotional climax. Although, it is certainly not the one that Dirty Harry enthusiasts would be expecting. Further removing the film from Dirty Harry saga is also the redemptive qualities of Eastwood's character. Walt, having been so removed from his family, finds that he can still connect with the Asian family next door, in particular Thao, who he acts as a teacher and role model to. Thankfully though, these scenes, like in Eastwood's other films, avoid sentimentality entirely. The Australian movie magazine Empire criticised the film for Walt's transition being too sudden, but there are efforts in the film and its script that ensure it remains credible. Despite the changes in Walt, his characterisation remains highly consistent. He is still grizzled and skeptical about the people he begins to mingle with. Yet it is not beyond him to see the good in people, regardless of their nationality, as he says to himself: 'I have more in common with these gooks than my own spoiled, rotten family.' The growth here, and perhaps to an extent the redemption, is what separates Eastwood's character from Harry Callaghan again. It is this change as Walt reconnects with people, in particular the young boy, which provides the film with its narrative direction and growth. Had it been expanded and drawn out, rather than compressed as it is, it may not have been as engaging.
Gran Torino may not have the poignancy of Million Dollar Baby or the confrontation of Mystic River, yet it is still such an engaging and often very funny film because of the central performance by Eastwood. There is little doubt that he is still one of Hollywood's strongest talents. It is his film and he dominates it with a performance that shows humour, anger and occasionally guilt. As a director, nearing the end of his career, Gran Torino remains an expression of Eastwood's maturity and skill to deal with such large and universal ideas, like the tolerance of culture. Gran Torino will make your day.