After
middling
in failed attempts at high art in his 2006 World War II
companion-features Flags of Our Fathers and Letters
from Iwo Jima, Clint Eastwood has quickly renewed himself by
returning to the type of picture he does best: the
old-fashioned, poignant character-drama. First came
Changeling, his riveting kidnapping mystery with a tour de
force Angelina Jolie performance. While that film packed a
strong punch, it’s tame compared to Gran Torino, a
masterwork that engages through well-written buddy-movie
bonding, perceptive observations on modern America, and
nostalgic nods to Eastwood’s ass-kickin’ Dirty Harry days
(he directs and stars). This is a no-frills picture—what
you see is what you get—but it’s entertaining and thoughtful in
ways that current Hollywood releases rarely are.
Eastwood’s
protagonist is Walt Kowalski, an old widower whose sole
pleasures are drinking beer, gnawing on beef jerky, and admiring
his 1972 Gran Torino. Walt, a Korean War vet and lifetime
auto-plant worker, is the product of a bygone America, watching
his once-prospering Michigan neighborhood become the hostage of
Hmong and Latino gangs. There is no one to console him as his
surroundings change, either: he cannot relate to his son’s
progressive family, which comes equipped with an eco-sensitive
SUV and a pierced teenage daughter, or his Church’s young
minister. While Walt may indeed be a racist old coot, those of
us who are weary of moral-decline in America will instantly
relate to his contempt for the growingly progressive world
around him. The character’s attitude—a mix of traditional
Eastwood gusto and conservative nostalgia—forges a strong bond
with the audience from the get-go.
The story takes
off when Walt one night stops a fight in his Hmong-immigrant
neighbors’ front-yard, shotgun in hand. The brawl was caused by
teenager Thao’s (Bee Vang) reluctance to join his cousin’s gang
after failing his initiation: stealing Walt’s prized car. Thao’s
family tries to repay Walt for his good deed with food and gifts
despite Walt’s nasty retort that he was just trying to keep
hoodlums off his lawn. Walt wants nothing to do with the “gooks”
but is eventually forced to accept Thao’s traditionalist
mother’s insistence that Thao work for him as a sign of good
faith to apologize for the fight and the car-jacking attempt. He
and the boy form an unlikely bond, a conventional storytelling
device that could’ve been boring and ineffective in lesser hands
but proves highly involving in Eastwood’s. Walt’s relationship
with Thao and his family provides insight on the roles of
traditional values and race-relations in America—Thao is
perceptive to Walt’s old-fashioned worldview because it is
similar to that of his own elders, while Walt in turn learns to
appreciate his foreign neighbors—and also creates involving
drama as Walt vies to stop Thao’s cousin’s violent gang from
disrupting the neighborhood ever again.
Eastwood
seamlessly intersperses the different tones and facets of his
story. Walt’s outrageously hostile attitude towards nearly
everything and everyone in the first two acts is presented as
comedy, which works surprisingly well in fostering the viewer’s
bond with the character because his sentiments, while often
bigoted and condemnable, show his isolation and need for
valuable human relationships. Meanwhile, the movie gains most of
its emotional heft through long, conversational passages that
capture Walt’s life in old age. These are ambitiously,
unapologetically straightforward and take the necessary time
that mainstream pictures rarely allow themselves nowadays. And I
haven’t yet mentioned the climactic, vengeance-laden scenes in
which Walt attempts to settle the score with the neighborhood
gang in the name of the becoming young man he has befriended—the
film’s source of external plot progression.
While Gran
Torino is layered and complex, the movie’s overriding
accessibility is part of its greatness. Eastwood has achieved a
work of considerable breadth, but it never feels pretentious as
it moves: the story is direct and effective. As I said in the
opening of this review, the director’s approach represents
old-fashioned moviemaking at its best, inviting thought and
discussion through gracefully simple staging. And let’s not even
get started on just how remarkable Eastwood’s lead
performance—likely his last—is, its strong narrative and
thematic support notwithstanding. Eastwood deserves
Oscar-recognition on multiple levels, as does Gran Torino
on the whole. It’s one of the best pictures of the year.
-Danny Baldwin,
Bucket Reviews
Review Published
on: 12.17.2008
Screened on:
12.12.2008 at the Mann Criterion 6 in Santa Monica, CA.
Gran Torino is rated R and runs 116
minutes.
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