Eastwood forever!

Rating: 10/10 (9 January 2009)

Clint Eastwood has recently hinted that this may be his final film as an actor, and if so, he has gone out on a very high note. Hard to imagine any other actor playing the bigoted old widower Walt Kowalsky. Basically imagine Clint's Gunney Highway character twenty years older and twenty years meaner. In the opening scene we see his wife's sparsely attended funeral, and Kowalsky's obvious contempt for his remaining family whom he considers either soft or disrespectful. After a get-together for the family back at his place, Walt suddenly finds himself basically alone with only his old dog for company. And worst of all (for him) the downtrodden neighborhood in which he lives is virtually free of white people. Most of his neighbors are Mhnog who find him as strange as he finds them. At least they are generally polite to him, where he verbally assaults them at every chance.
Trouble arises for the young teenage Mhong boy next door who is the target of his cousin's gang. They try to get the boy to steal Kowalsky's vintage 1972 car of the film's title. Kowalsky stops the boy in his tracks, and the boy's family sentences him to work for Kowalsky to repay his debt of shame. Kowalsky wants nothing of this until he realizes that he can use the boy to make all kinds of improvements around the neighborhood. Over the course of the film, Kowalsky bonds with his Mhong neighbors and they help each other out when necessary. But when street gangs are involved, this kind of conflict can only end after someone is dead.
The film handles some very delicate subject matter and uses humor to let different ethnic groups and minorities come to terms. The amount of racial stereotype humor will offend some, and maybe only an actor of Eastwood's clout could play such a bigoted character and make him likable. But thankfully this is not a film that condescends to its viewers. It makes no excuses for Kowalsky, but also paints him as a real person and not a stereotypical hateful white man. Once he gets to know his neighbors, we see his true human side... even if he still refers to their daughter as a "dragon lady" or the boy as a "zipper". And the film also points out how difficult it can be for young people of any race to avoid gangs in economically depressed areas. At one point, Kowalsky watches a carload of gang bangers drive by, and instantly thinks of the boy next door. "He doesn't stand a chance," he mutters to himself. And when things finally come to a head, the film can really only end the way it does. Kowalsky is tough as nails, but at his age he is no action hero. But he ends up ridding the neighborhood of the gang the only way he can.
This film may well win Eastwood some more awards for his ever-increasing war chest. If not as an actor, then certainly as a director... Clint must carry on and on. And one more note. Spike Lee, who has recently been critical of Eastwood has based his entire career on pointing the finger at other people. Spike old pal, you'd better just worry about making your own films watchable! Because they haven't been for a long time. 10 of 10 stars for Gran Torino.
The Hound.