Gran Torino

Let me just say this up front - Clint knocks this performance out of the park. Seriously. I've had mixed emotions about the esteemed Mr. Eastwood in the past, generally finding his performances (and direction) to be a mixed bag. For every Mystic River or Million Dollar Baby, there's a Blood Work, Space Cowboys or, at the risk of being beaten to death by film critics everywhere, Unforgiven. Fortunately this performance falls into the former group (the film doesn't but I'll get onto that later). Clint plays a retired auto worker/Korean war veteran who's wife has died at the beginning of the film. All his old friends have either died or moved out of the neighborhood to be replaced by immigrants, and his kids & grandkids disrespect everything he holds dear (they even drive toyota SUV's!) Oh yeah he's also a racist, but a likable one. He spouts epitaths and racial generalties throughout the film, but we never get the impression that he'd go out and burn a cross. One more thing - he has lots of guns (of course he does). You can kind of think of his character as Dirty Harry crossed with the racist old lady I used to live next to who greeted my roomate and I by saying 'I'm so happy you guys moved in. You never know what kind of people will move in...or what color they'll be.' That's right San Bernardino bringing the races together for hundreds of years.

Anyway, Clint's chracter really justs wants to be left alone to drink and whatnot, but he ends up saving the neighbor immigrant boy and his sister from being accosted by various gangs, and eventually finds some connection with them, etc - you get the idea. The reason to watch the film is Clint, he has all the snarls, exasperated expressions, and stink eyes that define his cahracter down cold. In particular the slow burn he does as his kids try to convince him to move out and go to a retirement community is priceless and probably worth the price of admission alone.

Unfortunately his performance is about the only thing to recommend the film. The portrayals of his kids and the various immigrant groups are less than subtle to say the least, and apparently Clint decided to cast amateurs to play all the immigrant chracters which turns out to be a fatal mistake. The kid he has playing the main immigrant boy is particularly bad, and he ends up killing any emotional undercurrent the film might of had. Also the aforementioned broadness of characterizations extends to film's story as a whole and creates a clunkiness that undermines its efforts to be a metaphor about society's changes as embodied by the city of Detroit (how's that for sounding prententious).

So to sum up: Clint's performance is tremendously satisfying, the rest of the film -not so much. Probably worth a rental at some point though as he's compelling enough to keep you fairly entertained throughout.