Yup. I liked this.

Rating: 9/10 (18 March 2010)

This film won't please the hardened critics who reduce everything to its constituent parts and find themselves pleased with themselves for spotting flaws. In places, the acting is a little wooden, even if they are aiming for that sort of feel to it as the boy goes through his rites of passage. You know what, though? Let the armchair critics have their fill.
They will tell you the symbolism is heavy, the dialogue not appropriate for 'down in the hood' kids, and the gang's main obsession during the movie a little bit flimsy. Which shows how unimaginative many critics can be. "Oh, that's not realistic. Couldn't happen." Yeah, and the earth's flat.
When people used to go to the theatre, they didn't go for a true representation of life - they went for something called catharsis, which many of you will already understand as a concept, so I won't labour it here. Romeo and Juliet is a deeply flawed piece from an ultra-realistic point of view. Othello happens in the famous 'dual time scale' in which the action takes place simultaneously over three weeks and two and a half days or something 'terrible' like that.
Yeah, great, thanks, guys. Let the armchair critics have their fill, as I say above. Those of us who are pleased to number Mr Eastwood among the citizens of our planet will have no difficulty in empathising with the central character and the family next door. Eventually. As a character drama, this is brilliant - bettered only by the cathartic elements. I won't say any more, only to say that two hours passed in about ten minutes.
I bang on about this a lot, but you know, people are too judgmental when it comes to films. They condemn something out of hand for minor flaws and bits they don't like they automatically assume are objective representations of the flaws of a work. It's amazing how, given the choice to think for themselves (out of the educational establishment, for example), many people find themselves to be perfect critics all the time.In any story you're going to drift in and out of it, and empathise more with some parts than others - even prefer bits to other bits.
In the end, Gran Torino's strength is in drawing from the compliant, empathetic audience, a welter of emotions and reflections which it then addresses in an exceedingly interesting denouement. Gran Torino is a film for the intelligent viewer, definitely not the Saturday night beerfest, and by the end of the piece, you really feel you have come to know and love Clint's character, and the lad he cares for. Would I watch it again? What a silly question.