Uneven film is never boring

Rating: 6/10 (11 January 2009)

Here is a film sure to stymie many a viewer. "Gran Torino" contains more racist slurs than any film I have ever seen and they are spoken by the film's reluctant hero. And yet the movie isn't really about racism. It is, however, about a racist living in a neighborhood that has changed. Walt Kowalski who was once surrounded by Polish neighbors is now living among Laotian, Aftrican-American, and Hispanic neighbors. One gets the impression that Walt built an insular world with his wife who, when the film opens, has passed away. Now alone, he ventures out in to his neighborhood to find it radically changed.
Racist language is wielded in films to either a)signal a character is evil or b)elicit uneasy laughter. It is also tends to define the character who uses it, making them one-dimensional. Walt will not be so easily pigeonholed. After defending his prized 1972 Gran Torino from thieves, Mr. Kowalski becomes embroiled in the lives and conflicts of his neighbors. At first his involvement with them is begrudging.
The film is a little clunky with its uneasy mix of comedy and drama. Kowalski's boiling anger is frequently played broadly and the film's final dramatic confrontation too pat to satisfy. I was never bored by "Gran Torino" and it's an oddball of a film that shifts tones from broad comedy to violent melodrama to gentle observational humor. Clint Eastwood is as always a commanding screen presence and in Walt Kowalski, he plays one of the year's most interesting screen heroes.