Vintage

Gran Torino is the story of a haggard, gritty, and retired Polish American Korean war veteran by the name of Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood).  Kowalski is a hardnosed, autoworker who apparently killed people in Korea.  Years later he lived out his life—married, had a couple kids—worked at a Detroit Ford factory and is now content to watch his world change over into a rundown neighborhood, overrun, if you will, by Hmong immigrants, teen gangs and what not.  In his garage, he keeps a vintage 1972 Gran Torino.  Memories of war bombs explode in the locked trunk of his mind, which he guards privately and as fiercely as his prized car.

All vestiges of his old glory life are gone if Walt ever did have a glory life.  It would be more accurate to say Walt had a way of life, which he came to grips with and, one might say, had a life that came to grips with him.  He wasn’t going to change just because of the times and even if his times saw that his wife died before he did, Walt would remain unchangeable. 

A priest tries to get him to confess what appears to be a submerged iceberg of guilt.
His wife of the ages recently passed as the film opens and Kowalski can only grimace and literally snarl a bit, which he does a lot of during the film.  We are lead to believe, Walt is unkind at the beginning of the film, but that is not true. His character is revealed by adversity, tempered by history that called for him to be hard and tough or die.

Try as he might, Walk simply can’t ignore the new reality of his world.   The world is moving in on him. Whereas he fought against Asian, it would be appear a tough pill to swallow as Asian immigrants slowly replace White working class Americans in his Michigan neighborhood.
A Hmong neighbor, a teen, Thao Vang Lor (Bee Vang) is pushed into trying to steal Walt’s Gran Torino as part of an initiation into a street gang, which Vang Lor attempts to resist but can’t.  He gets caught by Walt stealing his car and is almost shot. 

Without getting into the details, Kowalski decides to show the kid how to be a real man. He teaches him the value of work and perhaps more importantly, the value of hope, which may have even come as a surprise to Walt.  The kid clearly believes he would never have a chance in a legitimate world.  Kowalksi gets him a job at a construction site and sets him on his way.   
The gang has a big problem with this.  

The want to take it a step further and when Kowalksi gets too far involved they machine gun his house and nearly kill the kids family.  The kid is now bent on revenge and wants Kowalksi help him achieve it.  Kowalksi realizes that there is no sensible way out of this life for the kid.  How he helps him next, I’ll leave for you to watch and discover for yourself.  It is good and touching and classic Clint.  

Gran Torino is a film about stoic redemption and rebirth.  Kowalski walked around with war pains.  You could see it.  He harbored anger.  You could tell he meant it when he told some Asian thug how high they piled bodies like his during the war.  However, he seems to come to an easy peace with himself by helping the helpless Vang Lor.  

In some ways, Kowalski and the teen are similar.  Kowalksi didn’t have a chance to do some good in life. He was perhaps so scarred by what he saw and did in war that his heart was darkened.  The boy was ravaged by a different reality.  Life in the slums.  His heart was darkened but for an opposite reason: he never knew what goodness could feel like otherwise.  It is these subtexts that I enjoyed about the film.  

This is a great role for Clint Eastwood and the movie is refreshingly different on many levels.  Eastwood evokes exactly what we want while doing it in a film that is not a run-of-the-mill drama fare.  And, darn it, you get some of the trademark Clint, which I am convinced he knows is why we always want to come see him: that dead cold and flinty stare.  That sense that by the end of the film, Clint will straighten everything out.  That tall monument like towering figure that can point a magnum or reach for a six shooter faster than you can say any which way but loose.  In Gran Torino, we Dirty Harry in his golden years. At least it feels like it.

I admire that Eastwood does these different kinds of films but still allows us to enjoy what we have come to love about him: the tough guy. I’ll be the first to admit: I never regarded Eastwood as a great actor; rather a legendary iconic image.  Maybe acting isn’t that hard if you look like Clint Eastwood?  He stands for something though.  Maybe that is testament to acting ability or maybe is not acting at all. I’ll say this: Clint has an acute awareness of his affect as an actor and his range.  In other words, he is not going to do a Rain Man flick anytime soon.    He’ll do his different movie, but do it his way, and still give you a dose of the guy we came to see for so many decades.

I give Eastwood more artistic clout as a director than an actor. Interestingly, I don’t think any of his directed films will necessarily become legendary here on CoolFilmz except for the one in which he starred, that being Unforgiven.  There are many great films Eastwood has directed. I would say almost all of the Kings. This is one of them.