New on DVD Jan 09 2009 @ 07:00 am
REVIEW: Gran Torino
Directed By: Clint Eastwood
Written By: Nick Schenk
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Christopher Carley
Running Time: 116 minutes
Rated R for language throughout, and some violence.
Clint Eastwood.
Everyone knows his name. He’s an American staple – as common a household name as Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson. Generations have grown up with his films, whether they be the many he has starred in or the ones he has directed in the last 30 years. He’s not only a staple of American cinema, but American culture in general. There’s a funny thing about Eastwood, though: he never quite stays the same. He was introduced to many through the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone and from there he created the violent persona of Insp. “Dirty” Harry Callahan. No rules for Dirty Harry; just results. Years later, Eastwood would direct a western himself in which he would reinvent himself.
This film was the rightful Oscar-winner Unforgiven, a film many consider to be his masterpiece. The character of William Munny was a new persona for Eastwood – a weary, worldly, much wiser man, desperately trying to make up for a past of reckless violence. By his fan’s estimation, Eastwood has been an old man since Unforgiven, but his newest film Gran Torino proves him to be truly ancient. The film could be his swan song and there is nothing wrong with that. But this is a swan song that is sung (quite literally) all wrong.
Clint Eastwood as Walt Kowalski
In Gran Torino, Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a recently widowed Korean war vet living on a street that has recently seen an increase in Asian population. Ol’ Walt doesn’t like this. Not one bit. And when one of the new neighbor boys tries to steal his most prized possession – a 1972 Gran Torino – as part of a gang initiation, Walt’s temper flares like none other. Through the help of some loving and thankful neighbors, Walt’s anger eventually morphs into a desire to reform the young boy. The old man, in turn, befriends his new neighbors and does his darndest to help rid the neighborhood of gang infestation. A noble act, for sure.
While playing Walt, Eastwood’s usual harsh intones turn into a growl and he rarely moves his teeth as he snarls through racial slurs, consciously witty insults, and the film’s main stinging line, “Get off my lawn!” Gran Torino is above all a character piece about Kowalski and Eastwood plays him with a gruff perfection that suits the character to a tee. The film shows the growth of Walt’s soul and how he learns to accept the new while simultaneously coming to terms with the old being dead and gone.
Imminent threat? You wish.
It’s just a shame that everything about the film other than Eastwood the Actor has to be so bad. The script is an almost entirely laughable string of hackneyed racial, sexual, and political platitudes and it doesn’t help that Eastwood has surrounded himself by such profoundly inexperienced actors. Most of them lack any kind of emotion and sound and look clueless for the entire run time garnering no sympathy for their characters or any emotional resonance whatsoever for the film as a whole. Especially bad are the young male actors chosen to play the Asian gang. Complete with tank-tops, f-bombs, low-rise pants, plenty of swagger, and molester mustaches, the only threat they pose as they walk down the streets of Walt Kowalski’s neighborhood is that of being cliché. They succeed marvelously and the way in which they do nicely summarizes much of Gran Torino.
Eastwood’s past personas and Walt Kowalski are all adept at dispatching violence, but Kowalski’s attitude is decidedly more … Zen? Yes, I think that’s the word. Because of his harrowing experiences during the war, Walt finds it much more fulfilling to aim a gun comprised of his forefinger and thumb than to brandish a real firearm. He’d rather cut people’s haughty personalities down with colorful verbal abuse than slash their bodies with a switchblade. That is not to say that Walt couldn’t easily take part is some old-fashioned butt-kicking – he’s just above it all now. Years of living have taught him that a man does have to know his limitations.
Honorable sentiment. Bittersweet for Eastwood, I’m sure. I just wish some of the passion and emotion he clearly feels about his long and varied career would have been communicated without a harvest of worn-out truisms and stock phrases. We can only hope that this isn’t Eastwood’s wave goodbye to the film industry because the man is a bona fide legend and far capable of so much more than Gran Torino.
on Jan 09 2009 @ 10:40 am 1. Evan Derrick said …
Nailed it, Phillip. Eastwood is enjoyable; the rest of the film is laughable. After a while I lost so much respect for Eastwood the director that I began to lose respect for Eastwood the actor. What a horrid misstep. Combine this with Changeling and you have to wonder if he has another Unforgiven, or even a Mystic River left in him.
on Jan 09 2009 @ 3:46 pm 2. Alexander Coleman said …
Well, I liked Gran Torino for what it was. The screenplay is doughy and cliched, and a number of the actors whose names don’t end in “-wood” are literally unbelievable in their roles, but I thought it was an interesting film, and truer to Eastwood’s art than the Oscar-starved films he’s been churning out for most of this decade. It’s an “old man’s picture,” something not dissimilar in tone and temperament from late period Hawks or Ford.
And one of the more winning elements is its sense of humor. Like I state in my review, the film, under the screenplay and Eastwood’s guidance, seems to know how “unreal” it is. It relies on ample humor, and this helps soften the audience up for the more poignant final act.
Eastwood is also again critiquing–while relishing, one last time–the very machismo for which he became so globally famous.
SPOILER The scene where he starts punching his house up is one of the better portrayals of a man of violence coming to terms with its ineffectiveness in certain times. (Which can be read as a timely political message, for those who wish to read it as such.) END SPOILER
Again, it’s not perfect; but it feels more definitively like an Eastwood picture, both behind and (especially) before the camera, than his recent batch of labor-of-Oscar-love films to me, and I enjoyed it.
FINAL SPOILER And, I like that it can be so easily compared to the last John Wayne film, The Shootist. END FINAL SPOILER
Nevertheless, you make your case well, and quite clearly, Phillip. Good review.
on Jan 09 2009 @ 4:16 pm 3. Phillip Johnston said …
Thanks, Alexander. I’ve got to say — I’ve loved Eastwood’s work over the last 10 years. I thought Million Dollar Baby was beautiful and I was extremely moved by Mystic River (although the end threw me for a loop). Different strokes, I guess.
Thanks for the great comment and compliment.
on Jan 09 2009 @ 6:02 pm 4. Sam Juliano said …
This looks great Phillip, I am leaving the house for a movie now (a second showing of THE READER) but i will be back to add my two cents……..
on Jan 10 2009 @ 7:49 pm 5. Rick Olson said …
A fine review, Phillip. It’s sad that Eastwood seems to have lost his way a bit, what with Changeling being so … meh … and now this one.
on Jan 11 2009 @ 9:34 am 6. Filmmaking Workshop said …
An interesting review Philip. Eastwood directed films are more popular, and they are good too.
Thanks for posting.
Jane.
on Jan 11 2009 @ 7:40 pm 7. Sam Juliano said …
“It’s just a shame that everything about the film other than Eastwood the Actor has to be so bad. The script is an almost entirely laughable string of hackneyed racial, sexual, and political platitudes and it doesn’t help that Eastwood has surrounded himself by such profoundly inexperienced actors. Most of them lack any kind of emotion and sound and look clueless for the entire run time garnering no sympathy for their characters or any emotional resonance whatsoever for the film as a whole. Especially bad are the young male actors chosen to play the Asian gang. Complete with tank-tops, f-bombs, low-rise pants, plenty of swagger, and molester mustaches, the only threat they pose as they walk down the streets of Walt Kowalski’s neighborhood is that of being cliché. They succeed marvelously and the way in which they do nicely summarizes much of Gran Torino.”
And there you have it- Phillip’s two-star pan of the new Clint Eastwood film, GRAN TORINO. While I would not go that low myself on it, I can unbderstand the arguments in that above-featured stupendously-written and insightful paragraph. The cliches are there, but I find that “bad script” as you call it, rife with infectious guilty humor that is certainly part of a most entertaining (if not especially artful) movie. Eastwood’s performance was quite solid as well. In any case, you stated here that many consider THE UNFORGIVEN as Eastwood’s greatest film. I would have to state unequivocably that LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA, a masterpiece, was Eastwood’s greatest film.
Another Phillip Johnston “master class” review.
on Jan 11 2009 @ 10:20 pm 8. Phillip Johnston said …
Thanks for the praise, Sam. Oddly, I had forgotten about Letters from Iwo Jima when I wrote this. I loved that film too (my favorite war film, probably) and also thought Flags of Our Fathers made some beautifully noble statements about the true nature of bravery and patriotism.
And you’re right: there’s humor in Gran Torino for sure. I just can’t escape the feeling that it’s very miscalculated humor.
on Jan 13 2009 @ 10:52 am 9. Daniel said …
With all due respect, Philip, I think a review of this movie that doesn’t mention Nick Schenk and/or the Hmong community is significantly lacking. The vision, characters, and story of this film were from Schenk’s head, admittedly unchanged during production by Eastwood. Now, the guy was a fruit truck driver while writing the screenplay longhand in a local bar here, so criticizing his amateur writing ability seems redundant.
Moreover, casting was specifically done through Hmong newspapers here last summer. Most of the cast is now back here, living and working as they were before. This is going to sound ludicrous, but from where I sit, in the same city where the story was born and meant to be set, Gran Torino portrays perhaps the most realistic characters I’ve seen on screen all year.
Now I’m not defending the acting or the writing, only explaining them. And I think in understanding their background, you might be able to appreciate the movie in a different way. It’s almost a documentary. I know, that sounds crazy – but this is how it is here, as I outline in my review. Sad, but true.
on Jan 16 2009 @ 5:05 pm 10. coffee said …
Gran Torino looks like a potentially good flick for gun enthusiasts
on Jun 15 2009 @ 9:11 am 11. Sean Blueart said …
Nope, you missed it. I’m getting this film on a deeper level. The dialogue is consciously unreal (”this is the way men talk” – patently ficticious!) , and all that bullshit on the surface is intended to be just that, surface. Beneath it there’s a lot going on about fading traditions and fading respect, the eroding of an underlying societal structure that, when pulled away (beginning with his wife’s death), leaves an old man lost to the world.
So, if there’s anything weak about the film, despite the unfortunate choice not to have Tom Waits do the closing song, it’s that it all unfolded way to quickly. This is easily a three hour film, if not an extended HBO series ala ‘The Wire’.
on Jul 23 2009 @ 7:49 am 12. Claire said …
Interesting review and comments, but i have to say i disagree with you Phillip, and as a whole i think Gran Torino is really worth watching. I do understand that some parts are a little cliché and that the acting of Bee Vang (thao) is not the greatest. But the film has a sense of “real” below the surface, as Sean says, it feels like a vivid portrait of a hidden reality, of human feelings and emotions that are not always visible on the first encounter, with the first impression. And that is what i think the film is about, at the end of the day. I found it different than the usual the-poor-minorities-in-america movie, more original, and much more subtle. And Eastwood reinvents himself in a new genre, in a flawless performance.