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Not exactly a road movie in the traditional sense,
Gran Torino is a combo tragic and goofy journey through
time rather than space, as the film's director and star
Clint Eastwood gets into surly senior power. And while flexing
those rejuvenated geriatric muscles, but mostly verbal and
otherwise. Though what a tongue lashing indeed, poised to
give those Superbad youngsters a run for their money.***
It's an odd but never less than intriguing addition
to the end of year wrap-up movie season. Especially on the
heels of the historic Obama racial reconciliation victory,
as Eastwood reinvents in his Gran Torino protagonist a dying
breed in more ways than one, of race obsession and divisiveness.
Though not exactly the stereotype conjured by Obama, this
guy clings to his guns but blasts religion, as he nearly
terrorizes the local young priest (Christopher Carley) he's
fond of referring to as an underqualified, overeducated
virgin.***
A decidedly mixed bag in storytelling and temperament,
Gran Torino is based on a Dave Johannson and Nick Schenk
story and with a screenplay written by Nick Schenk. The
various disconnected threads of this tale and lack of coherent
structure should come as no surprise, in the context of
Schenk's previous script, titled Factory Accident Sex. Nuff
said. But Clint is never less than up for the formidable
mission, doing a deliriously dark and funny Dirty Harry
self-parody. And with a Beevis and Butt-Head style persistent
growl in reaction to the dreary state of the world, that
will surely bestow upon his character Walt Kowalski, instant
movie icon status.***
Walt is a Midwestern alcoholic widower who sits on his
porch all day, veering between fuming and sulking. A retired
Ford assembly line worker who clings to his beloved 1972
vintage Gran Torino, nearly daring any neighborhood varmints
to even think about coming near it, Walt is also disgusted
with his adult sons and their families who just want to
get rid of their bothersome dad, by warehousing him away
in an old age home.***
A veteran of the Korean conflict, Walt is still apparently
fighting that war against any alien race available, at least
inside his head. And he appears to have never recovered
from post traumatic stress syndrome, though Walt is a proud,
decorated war hero. But he crosses a dangerous line into
the real world, when an ethnic Chinese Hmong family moves
next door and immediately incurs the wrath of a local youth
Hmong gang against their teenage son, Tao (Bee Vang). And
when that family feud spills across his lawn and the invisible
DMZ line he's designated as off-limits, Walt loses it and
then some.***
It's at this point that the unfocused tale breaches
a line of believability as well, and Gran Torino trades
that collectible buggy in for, well, Taxi Driver, as Walt
morphs into a septuaginarian Travis Bickle vigilante on
a rampage. And with Tao's spunky sister Sue (Ahney Her),
whom Walt is into gallantly protecting, doing a suburban
version of Jodie Foster's streetwise femme fatale, Iris.***
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