Blog Reveiw: Gran Torino

Director:Clint Eastwood

Producer: Bill Gerber and Clint Eastwood

Starring Clint Eastwood

Filled with nostalgia for times past, Gran Torino is an excellent example of how movies can succeed based with a strong central actor and an equally strong plot. As a Korean War veteran Clint Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski in "Gran Torino,” a recently widowed Detroit auto worker who has a very shor tmper. He cant stand his spoiled children and even more spoiled grandchildren who argue over who will be left with what once Walt dies. Armed with a cooler full of beer but still maintaining his athletic fitness, Walt spends most of his time on his porch bemoaning the influx of Asian immigrants into his blue-collar neighborhood. Often, Walt seems content to simply spew racial under his breath, often over his breath, too. Similar to the classic Hollywood cinema, Walt is like the grouchy underappreciated chracter who just needs to find some love.

Much of the joy of "Gran Torino” derives from watching Walt's deepening relationship with his newfound Asian friends, whom he persists in giving names like "Yum Yum" and "Toad" even as he develops a surly affection for them. In several scenes Walt can even be seen moving beyond the barriers that he has kept up his entire life and coming to terms with a war that still haunts him. Amusing however, throughout the film Walt is an equal-opportunity verbal bomb-thrower, as evidenced by the quick, unprintable way he dispatches one of Sue's white boyfriends when he sees the couple being threatened by a group of African American teenagers.

As its title suggests, "Gran Torino" is a nostalgia trip, in this case for the 1970s vigilante action pictures that Eastwood made his own. The film feels not only like a culmination of a director who has spent much his later years filming gritty realistic movies, but also an actor who’s past is filled with the contours and lines of a pulp genre. 

Tough has never been enough for Eastwood, instead the film concludes on a twist ending in which Walt exorcises his demons without easy violence or false redemption. A lifetime in movies runs through this vintage Eastwood performance. You can't take your eyes off him. The no-frills, very gritty and realistic Gran Torino is one film you will not regret seeing.