He Said, She Said: Gran Torino
By D. James Ruccio III
January 28, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com

What are you, 15?

He said...

When one looks back upon Clint Eastwood's career upon its completion, there will be much written about the well-known bullet points of his career. There will be discussions of Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns with their iconic anti-hero, the Man With No Name, and 1970s cop movies regarding urban decay. If he had ceased performing after these works, Eastwood would have been considered a successful actor for his generation. However, his career continued as he began to blend acting with writing, producing and directing. The true apex of Clint Eastwood's tremendous prolonged career may well be his directorial efforts.

Gran Torino is another memorable and well-crafted entry to his long list of significant and enduring films.

Gran Torino is the deliberately simple story of Walt Kowalski, a newly widowed, supremely grouchy retiree. He lives in a neighborhood which is in the midst of significant social changes. White, middle class families have presumably left and been replaced by an offshoot of Asian American immigrants, the Hmongs, a southern Chinese ethnicity. This is change that the barely suppressed racism of Walt's world cannot tolerate. The Hmong people are entirely foreign to him.

He's mean to his annoying grandkids and even his earnest and dedicated family priest. He manages to even growl, "Git off my lawn." while wielding a rifle convincingly and in a way that this reviewer was sure we'd never see again. Mostly, he simply wishes to be left alone, to live his remaining years with his dog, drinking beer on his front porch. Through a series of events, however, he is forced to begin to know his neighbors. It all starts when the young Hmong teenage boy, Tao, under pressure from his older gang member cousin, attempts to steal Walt's prized possession, a 1970s Gran Torino. Through this event Walt begins to come to know his neighbors.

Distilling down the plot to these points, however, somehow does not adequately record the grand quality of the story telling. In the hands of someone less accomplished, this story could be a complete, trite and obvious failure. However, in Eastwood's deft and easy directorial hands the story is ultimately poignant and thoughtful.

Clint Eastwood's performance begins abruptly and is portrayed for effect, but he settles, as his character develops, into a rhythm that matches the film. The performance of a gruff old man may seem cartoonish to some but it is not unrealistic. There is a grim reality to his character's existence, full of disappointment, as the character sees it, which taints his perception.

The other cast members, all new to the profession, give seemingly raw, untrained performances. Ahney Her who plays Sue Lor, the young Hmong woman who lives next door, gives the best of the performances by the supporting cast as a relentless optimist whose dogged determination to befriend Walt never wavers. The rest of the supporting performances can be slightly distracting but they never destroy the scenes or derail the film. In a sense it is Eastwood the performer behaving like his character, as he has clearly taken the untested cast on as his students in the profession of film making. One can imagine paternalistic advice being doled out in soft, brief snippets on set.


The movie is paced well. Again, you sense Eastwood's experienced story telling at work moving the audience through the story. It is manipulative, but only in the most gentle and benign sense. Scenes are there to evoke emotional responses; however, each one is genuine.

He has a natural touch with humor, which is very effective. The audience is engaged with humor and yet equal amounts of sadness often at the same time. In the very first scene, which is the funeral of Walt's wife, he appraises his family's appearance with crotchety glances and mumbles through familiar Eastwood gritted teeth. He easily sprinkles funny lines of dialogue throughout. The humor, however, never feels like deliberate or strained comedy relief.

The story moves through a predictable arc where Walt begins to realize that the Hmong people are very much like the traditional American ethnicities he is originally more comfortable with. He comes to realize that he has just as much in common with his new neighbors if not more than he does with his own family.

There are nice moments of clarity which again prove Walt is not always right and not the one with all the answers. Father Janovich (played by Christopher Carley), his wife's priest, confronts Walt's deeply held belief that only Walt knows more about Death than most. Father Janovich proves to Walt, that while he may know about Death this does not bestow upon him insight into Life. This is supremely enlightening to Walt.

In a way, and I don't know if this is intentional, Gran Torino seems to be the second of what one could be considered his "redemption" movies. Arguably, Eastwood's two most significant performances are as The Man With No Name from the Sergio Leone westerns and Harry Callahan from the Dirty Harry movies.

Unforgiven - whether intended or not - was Eastwood's subtle exploration of the end results of the Man With No Name's life. While the characters were not the same and there were differences (The Man With No Name being an Anti-Hero and William Munny decidedly more villainous, there was an attempt it seemed to draw parallels and thus conclusions to the life led by The Man with No Name.

In Gran Torino and the character of Walt Kowalski there are again parallels to Dirty Harry Callahan. Both men live by a code of ideals that most see as irrelevant and they themselves see as under threat. He sees his ideals as threatened from everyone including initially his Asian-American neighbors. And while it is too late for him to be an influence in his own families lives - as they clearly misunderstand him and reject his code - he knows he can nurture, guide and protect others who, while not of his blood line, share his values

In these value sets the audience sees a positive ideal. But much of the movie involves characters around Walt driven to him and his beliefs by threats from the outside. Perhaps Gran Torino is, in part, a discussion of what beliefs people are attracted to while under threat. The Dirty Harry movies are an attempt to discuss this very concept. These are relevant questions in a post-September 11th reality just as they were in the political, social and economic difficulty of the 1970s. While the Dirty Harry movies were an attempt to show a resolute character confronted by negative changes and triumphing over them. Gran Torino pulls us back and attempts to discuss the consequences of a thoroughly un-adaptive life. All the while, he shows that resolution in the face of adversity brought on by change is also its virtue. It is an exploration of the various faults and benefits of resolution as a characteristic. In this way, Gran Torino is a much more subtle and complex movie than one would think.

It is another successful film, nearly as affecting as Million Dollar Baby as it explores themes of intolerance and preconceived notions, emotional progress, loss and the subtlety of resolution as a characteristic. It is another artistically satisfying work by a performer who continues to impress and surprise with his evocative work.