Warner Bros. | 2008 | 117 mins | Rated R
Clint Eastwood has reportedly said that 2008’s Gran Torino will mark his last appearance in front of the camera. If that’s the case, his absence as an actor will mark a big change in the film landscape. From the time Eastwood became a star in the sixties, until the early 1990’s he was the go to guy; he made westerns, action films and the occasional sequel.
As he grew older, Eastwood seemed to change his focus and start making more serious, dramatic pictures. He started directing the kind of movies that critics tend to fawn over and get lots of attention during awards season. In 2003 he directed Mystic River, a crime drama about murder, vigilantism, and sexual abuse. In Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, Eastwood presented a thoughtful take on World War II. In 2005, he found critical and commercial success when he directed, produced, scored and starred in the boxing drama Million Dollar Baby. Eastwood played a cantankerous trainer who forms an unlikely bond with the female boxer (Hilary Swank) he reluctantly trains after being persuaded by his lifelong friend (Morgan Freeman). The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture, as well as earning Eastwood a Best Actor nomination and a win for Best Director. Swank and Freeman also won Oscars for their performances.
While I respect all of those films, I really enjoyed Gran Torino because in a lot of ways it felt like Clint was harkening back to his Dirty Harry days. Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a retired Detroit autoworker, a Korean War veteran, and an inveterate racist. Not a nice guy it would seem; however, there’s something about him that lets the audience know he’s a good guy at heart. The war has messed him up pretty badly and he has horrific memories of death and destruction. To make matters worse, his wife, whom he loved dearly, has just passed away when the film begins. He tells a nosy Catholic priest (Christopher Carley) that he knows plenty about death. The priest asks, “What do you know about life?” Walt doesn’t have an answer for that.
Walt now lives alone. His house is on a suburban street that was likely middle class when he and his wife moved in but has since deteriorated. Walt blames this state of affairs on foreigners, particularly the multi-generation family of Hmong immigrants in the house next door. Walt openly tells himself how much he hates the matriarchal old witch who likes to sit on her porch, same as Walt does, and glare at the world. In subtitled Hmong, the matriarch (Chee Thao) wonders aloud why Walt doesn’t just move away.
The family next door has two teenage kids: daughter Sue (Ahney Her) and son Thao (Bee Vang). Thao is quiet and introverted; he’s getting pressured by their cousin (Doua Moua) to join his Hmong gang; the initiation they devise for him is to boost Walt’s prized Torino. Walt catches Thao in the act; he runs for the hills, and when he refuses to participate in another initiation, a brawl breaks out in front of their home that creeps over to Walt’s place. This is where Eastwood becomes reminiscent of so many tough guys he’s played in the past; as Thao and his antagonists fight and scrao all over Walt’s perfect green grass, the camera tilts up to Eastwood, leveling a rifle in tight close-up, as he growls, “Get off my lawn.” Later, Sue is out for a stroll with a white boy when they’re confronted by three tough looking black guys who start talking dirty and man-handling her. Walt happens by, and ends up saving Sue by pulling a gun on the black kids (and throwing some racial slurs their way too).
Though Walt is far from lovable, at his core he’s more honorable than bigoted. Like many of the characters Eastwood played throughout his career, Walt has a strong sense of justice, believing most choices to be either a simple Right or Wrong. Because it is the Right thing to do, he reluctantly becomes a father figure to Sue and Thao (their own father is absent). He likes that Sue responds to his jibes by laughing him off; she’s tough, she’s smart and she stands up for herself. Thao, on the other hand, is unsure of himself and Walt sees a chance to shape him, to teach him to work, and to make a man out of him.
Gran Torino is a far from perfect film. Walt Kowalski is a rather stereotypical character and as uneven as the story gets at times, Gran Torino is still a largely entertaining film. If this is Clint Eastwood’s last appearance in front of the camera, he has provided fans with a fitting farewell.
Warner’s 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer is pretty good. Much of the film takes place in autumnal daytime exteriors, utilizing a warm if muted color palate that is successfully captured here. The balance takes place in darkness and shadows, where the contrast is solid and blacks are rich and inky. There is occasional edge enhancement and some of the backgrounds are a little noisy.
The English soundtrack comes in Dolby Digital 5.1. It’s reasonably clear and clean, with strong dynamics and bass when necessary; a wide front-channel spread; and a good, though subtle, use of the surrounds, mostly for environmental noises.
Gran Torino does include a couple extras:
• Manning The Wheel (9:23 examinines Walt’s Torino and classic car culture in general (a secondary theme at best in the film, title notwithstanding). Eastwood talks about his own history of cars, while other members of the cast and crew talk about their impressions of the auto theme and their own “dream cars.”
• Gran Torino: More Than a Car (3:57) begins with a profile of the titular ride before visiting the “Woodward Dream Cruise,” a car event in suburban Detroit and talking to auto enthusiasts about their lives and their cars.
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