Movie Review: Gran Torino (2008, Directed by Clint Eastwood)

I should begin by pointing out a few simple facts about Mr. Clint Eastwood: The legendary film actor and director is 78 years old. Over the past 30 years or so, he has directed an average of one film per year, a pace rivaled only by the likes of Woody Allen. Generally speaking, his best work has been created late in his career. In the past 15 years alone, he has produced at least four masterpieces, including Unforgiven, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, and Letters from Iwo Jima, in addition to many other films of undeniable quality. Two of his films have won Oscars for Best Picture. I mention these facts about Mr. Eastwood (as if everybody didn’t already know), because I want to clearly state that the director of Gran Torino is one of the undeniable geniuses working in motion pictures today.

Of course, even geniuses make a misstep every now and then in their work. Don’t get me wrong, Gran Torino is not a complete disaster. What works in the film is Eastwood’s over-the-top, downright creepy lead performance. What doesn’t work is virtually everything else in the movie.

Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a Korean War veteran living in Detroit who seems to be honking mad at everyone and everything, especially the Hmong people who have moved into his neighborhood. He expresses his anger through growling (literally … I’m not making this up), drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, and spewing a litany of insults so politically incorrect that even Archie Bunker would cringe. However, Walt grows some respect for the Hmong people and their culture when he befriends two teenage Hmong neighbors. His attempt to protect their family from violent neighborhood gang activity forms the crux of the plot for the film’s second half.

I saw Gran Torino in a packed Chicago multiplex. I have to say that the audience’s reaction probably colored my response to the film. They laughed uncontrollably at Kowalski’s ridiculously over-the-top racial slurs. I felt quite uncomfortable, not entirely sure if I should be laughing or cringing at these remarks (or both). I will acknowledge that the discomfort I felt might be the film’s desired effect. Nevertheless, I didn’t feel that the use of all this deliberately insensitive and ignorant language paid off or served as a means to a worthy and admirable end.

Any moral quibbles I might have with the film, though, are overshadowed by the artistic problems I have with Gran Torino, including the small detail that none of the people in the film (sans Eastwood) can act. This, of course, is a problem that many competent directors have overcome in the past. Eastwood, I’m sad to say, is not to be added to this list of filmmakers who make great art out of meager resources and talents. The scenes that don’t involve Eastwood simply lay on the screen, completely lifeless.

It’s a shame too that the director who brought us the moral ambiguity of Unforigven felt it necessary to make a film in which the heroes and villains are painted in such black and white terms. This could have been a fascinating story if Eastwood would have explored the gray areas a bit more.

I understand that people will say it’s enough to simply see Mr. Eastwood, near the end of his illustrious career, reprising the tougher-than-nails Dirty Harry-type of his younger days. I will concede that the pleasure I got from this film came almost entirely from watching Eastwood tear the screen apart with his innate toughness. Audiences simply hoping for “Dirty Harry Goes to Detroit” will find it. Audiences seeking anything more may be profoundly disappointed.