Gran Torino
February 2, 2009
Clint Eastwood rebounds from the flat “Changeling” with a story better suited to the self-reflexive nature of his direction, starring as an angry war vet whose once quaint Detroit neighborhood has deteriorated and been overrun by Hmong immigrants. As Walt Kowalski, a recently widowed, retired auto worker with racial hatred tendencies, Eastwood plays with his past violent screen image (a continuation, of sorts, of the reformed violent loner in “Unforgiven”), but softens the edges with light comedy, directed at himself, as a growling old coot, and weaves in a redemptive storyline involving his mentoring of a young Hmong teenager troubled by a pushy gang. That Walt is throwing around racial epithets one minute and hanging with his Hmong neighbors the next, after saving the sweet girl next door from some hoods, is kind of problematic, as is the fact that Walt's racial tolerance seems to simply melt away for the nice boy and girl, but rages again at the sight of the gang, but those problems seem minor after Eastwood subverts Dirty Harry and William Munny, eschewing a violent revenge to teach the boy a lesson about honor, death, and manhood. If this is Eastwood's last screen performance, as he's said in interviews, it fits in nicely with his continuing reexamination of his famous violent image; the progression from the Man With No Name, to Harry Callahan, to William Munny, to Walt Kowalski and peaceful retirement seems complete.
By Adam Suraf