Gran Torino (2009) *****

Clint Eastwood. Pissed off. With a gun.

That could have been the name of this film and millions of people would have gone to see it because he's our John Wayne, that American legend that saves all the unfortunates and shoots the bad guys in his own way. His presence is as close to a real Superman as we're going to get being him in a serape gunning down six men at a time or sporting muttonchops and shooting a punk with a .44 magnum one handed (which is very, very difficult to do in the real world). Add that into the anti-authoritarian, non P.C. personality that his characters usually have and he becomes a mans, mans, man.

Which brings us to his latest film Gran Torino. Eastwood plays the tempermental Walt Kowalski, a Korean war vet and retired Ford auto plant worker who has just lost his wife and is dealing with his own final chapter. The racist Kowalski is not to happy about his new neighbors: another Hmong family that seems to have taken over the neighborhood. When the young son of the family attempts to steal Kowalski's prized 1972 Gran Torino as a gang initiation their worlds collide as Tao (Bee Vang) attempts to redeem the honor of his family by working for Walt and Walt realizing he can make a difference in this young boys life.

People who are sensitive to racial slurs should not go see this movie. There are some individuals out there who live in some fantasy land where everyone is just smitten with everyone else. There are people as brash and harsh and racist as Walt. There's a lot of them. They could be your neighbor. They could be your uncle, grandfather, dad, etc. There's a whole group of people who still live in 1955 and see no reason to use words that make the sheltered cringe. They're characters and they're interesting to listen to. The other thing that people need to remember when watching this movie is the line from the Eastwood classic Dirty Harry:

"Harry doesn't pick any favorites. He hates everybody".

Walt's the same way. He hates everyone and everything (including his kids and their kids) except his deceased wife and his dog Daisy. So, in a way, he isn't that racist after all. he's and equal opportunity hater.

Gran Torino is filled with first time actors, mainly Hmong who give the family ritual scenes a little more credibility and of course Eastwood is prepared for the role. The film has typical Eastwood direction: nothing to fancy or grandiose. Just a film maker telling a little story in Michigan.

Eastwood has hinted that Gran Torino might be his last acting role and even though that would be a shame it's easy to see how the bookends of his career would finally be complete. Seventeen years ago in Unforgiven he gave us a closing chapter on The Man With No Name that redefined that figure he played in various westerns under various names. He was haunted by the violence. Gran Torino plays much in the same way with Eastwood writing the final chapter on all of his pissed off Dirty Harryesque characters. They found compassion and a way to redeem themselves. It's about a man that gets beyond his own attitudes and accepts that there's more to a person than where their parents or grandparents were born. It's like Dirty Harry with a conscious.

Gran Torino will probably get ignored this awards season (though Eastwood may get an acting nod), but it is yet another finely made piece by Clint Eastwood and represents yet another turn in his great career. While many may consider Gran Torino to be a racist film it really shows that even the roughest and gruffest of brutes and change into more understanding human beings in the new millennium- while still being characters.