The Enforcer in the 'burbs.

Rating: 8/10 (9 January 2009)

It's not a Dirty Harry film... really, it isn't. But someone forgot to tell Clint Eastwood.
Clint Eastwood carries around so much Legend with him that no matter how he approaches a character, we view him through the prism of his inimitable Avenger archetypes. He was Dirty Harry in only five of his nearly 60 starring films, yet when Clint goes Avenger, he'll always be Harry Callahan to us.
Foul-mouthed Walt Kowalski (Eastwood) is an outspoken racist who demeans religion, estranges himself from his children and grandchildren, mocks foreign families, and pulls a shotgun on a boy who tries to steal his car. Only Clint could play this 78 year old, unrepentant Korean War vet and still be loved for it. No one else could have pulled it off - after all, a man's got to know his limitations.
Recently widowed Kowalski is the last white man standing in a Detroit neighborhood overrun by Hmong immigrant families from Southeast Asia and Vietnam. He is none too happy with his social situation - in fact, he acts the hell out of the Actor's Workshop definitions of Cantankerous and Surly - and keeps busy by obsessively mowing his lawn and fawning over his prized 1972 Gran Torino.
A local gang forces Kowalski's young neighbor, Thao (Bee Vang), to "mess with another man's vehicles" and steal the Gran Torino as initiation, but Thao comes up against Kowalski's aforementioned shotgun and flees. The next night when the gang returns for the unwilling Thao, a scuffle breaks out and ends up on Kowalski's well-tended lawn.
There can be nothing more foreboding, and yet so hysterically funny, than Clint Eastwood aiming a shotgun at a gangbanger's head and bringing his velvet rasp to bear on that age-old phrase of grumpy old men: "Get off my lawn!" That is the moment Walt/Clint/Philo becomes Dirty Harry. And for once, we cheer the grumpy old man.
That's why no one else could have played this role. When someone offends a character played by Clint, we EXPECT Clint to pull a gun. Anything less would detract from his Avenger awesomeness. Now if Woody Allen played Kowalski, we'd have a more believable "Everyman pushed to the edge." Clint is hardly Everyman. And you don't have to push him to the edge to get a gun in your face - the middle will do. That's what keeps Clint Harry.
While the Hmong neighborhood showers Kowalski with gifts for his "heroism," the gang harbors a vendetta against Thao's family, which only escalates. Meanwhile, Thao offers his services to Kowalski to atone for his attempted theft; thus even as events concatenate to bring out the Callahan in Kowalski, his paternal side is awakened as he mentors Thao.
Clint's performance, though not Oscar-worthy, is vintage Clint, all sneering one-liners and avenger glares, recognizing his own star quality and humor and playing to those strengths. The cast of unknowns supporting him is another matter. Most of the Asians cannot act and seem like props for the story to progress. In his first film role, Bee Vang does such a useless job as Thao that we're constantly wondering whether he's acting socially inept or whether his acting is inept. When you "fall out" of the film to wonder - Game Over.
A young Catholic priest (Christopher Carley) serves as an annoying "conscience" for Kowalski; he consoled Kowalski's wife in her last days and pesters Kowalski to take confession. Kowalski tells him straight: "I think you're an overeducated 27 year old virgin who likes to hold the hands of superstitious old ladies and promise them everlasting life."
We love you too, Harry.
As violence in the neighborhood escalates, the specter of Harry rises to meet it: "Ever notice how you come across somebody once in a while you shouldn't have messed with? That's me."
This man has tongue-kissed Death, garnering war medals he has no use - and even less respect - for; we feel his visceral absence of fear against tiresome street punks who think they are tough because their pants are low. Eastwood shows us it has nothing to do with height of pants, as his are up somewhere near his armpits.
The pants are a dead giveaway - we realize with a sudden impact this man is a "grandpa." It takes a bit of getting used to hearing his actual grandkids say it, rather than a bad guy mocking him before getting the subsequent knuckle sandwich or magnum opus.
So we feel the inevitable coming: Screenwriter Protocol decrees the Curmudgeon must soften and the Patsy must harden (i.e. racist Kowalski learns tolerance and wimpy Thao learns manliness - they "complete" each other) - but it doesn't come! Taking their cue from that rubber bracelet, "What Would Harry Do?" director Eastwood and writers Nick Schenk and Dave Johannson allow Kowalski to become a hero without becoming insufferably pc.
Yet another Eastwood film that defines "heroism" clearly: A hero is someone who has the option NOT to be.
Killing boy-soldiers in Korea still haunts Kowalski, so to save Thao's and Sue's lives and to redeem his own, Kowalski's fearless, fading warrior goes out with a bang - literally.
We can see the showdown looming, but because it's Clint, we don't quite accept what is happening until it happens. What Would Harry Do? At his age... in the 'burbs... Harry just might...
In LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD, I called Bruce Willis the screen's Last Action Hero. I was wrong. There's always gonna be some Dirty left in our Harry.