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Starring Clint Eastwood.
Produced and directed by Clint Eastwood.
Story by Dave Johannson and Nick Schnek.
Screenplay by Nick Schenk.
112m. Rated R.
DVD Reviewed by Peter Veugelaers
It would be funny if Clint
Eastwood as Walt Kowalski on the cover of the DVD package of
Gran Torino actually wore a white collar like a Catholic priest
does. It just looks like there is one around his neck. A trick of
the mind, perhaps, and I was duped by the shadow. What a priest he
would be and it is nothing like Father O’Malley from
Going My Way.
There is a battle of wits
between a Catholic priest and the character, Walt, which Clint
really plays. But I can imagine what kind of priest Clint could make
in this screen incarnation. Even though the priest is told, in
Walt’s direct way, to leave him alone, he is persistent. Salted with
humor, Walt’s manner and cynical attitude towards the priest is
amusing at first. However, the Dirty Harry persona becomes contrived
after a while.
What is distinctive about
the Clint Eastwood films since
Mystic River is their character. They are solid, which is a
reflection of Clint’s personas on screen: tough, uncompromising and
honest yet hiding a raw nerve which gets pricked by what’s happening
around him and which he instinctively hides.
Gran Torino
gives Clint back his signature style, this time as the grumpy Walt
Kowalski, a Korean War veteran who is retired from car manufacturing
at Ford. His down-to earth style and knowledge – he has a myriad of
tools in the garage, built up during 50 years - gives the character
centering and trustworthiness. He lives next door to Hmongs from
Asia. Far from reaching out to them, he can’t tolerate them or the
Catholic priest that comes around after his wife’s funeral. A boy
from the Hmong family next door gets bullied into joining the
violent local gang. His task to earn respect is to break into Walt’s
grand possession, the 1972 Gran Torino he keeps in the garage.
Needless to say, Walt isn’t happy. When he protects a girl from the
neighbors they bring him thanksgiving food. Like in
Mystic River a man should
protect children and not abuse them.
Walt’s burgeoning relationship with the family leads him to
getting involved with the boy’s future, his tool collection, and the
neighborhood gang problem which is a constant source of tension.
The slower middle shows a
more sensitive side to proceedings when Walt mellows. The middle is
designed that way for a reason when later on the audience is led
into an emotionally packed climatic sequence that relates skillfully
to the middle.
It is not that Walt hates
Catholicism. The priest and Walt are both given room for growth and
they seem to agree: salvation is hard and facing violence harder
than cruising Walt’s Gran Torino, a source of escapism. As the
saying goes - by God’s grace, go I. The message about divine
forgiveness and inner peace that leads to laying someone’s life down
for the peace and life of the neighborhood, when the odds are
stacked against it, will get you talking.
Skillfully designed and
beautifully filmed, Gran
Torino is provocative without easy solutions to the predicament
of violence which requires more than conviction – it requires
commitment.
Gran Torino Trailer:
Amazon.comThe latest Dirty Harry is actually a grumpy Walt: Walt Kowalski (Eastwood playing his own age), widower, Korean War veteran, retired auto worker, and the last white resident of his Detroit side street. It's hard to say who irks him more--his blood kin (a pretty lame bunch) or the Hmong families who are his new neighbors. Kowalski's a racist, because it has never occurred to him he shouldn't be. Besides, that's the flipside of the mutual ethnic baiting that serves as coin of affection for him and his working-class buddies. Circumstances--and two young people next door, the feisty Sue (Ahney Her) and her conflicted brother Thao (Bee Vang)--contrive to involve Walt with a new community, and anoint him as its hero after he turns his big guns on some ruffians. The trajectory of this may surprise you--several times over. Eastwood opted to film in economically blighted Detroit--a shrewd decision, but it's his mapping of Walt's world in that classical style of his that really counts. Every incidental corner of lawn, porch, and basement comes to matter--and by all means the workshop/garage that houses the mint-condition Gran Torino which Walt helped build in a more prosperous era. This is a remarkable movie. --Richard T. Jameson Product Description
A disgruntled Korean War vet, Walt Kowalski (Eastwood),
sets out to reform his neighbor, a young Hmong teenager,
who tried to steal Kowalski's prized possession: his
1972 Gran Torino.
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