Review: Gran Torino

Dir. Clint Eastwood
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Ahney Her
Grade: C-

Add “Gran Torino” to the list of disappointments of 2008. While my expectations were never high for this film (call me crazy, but I’ve never been a great fan of the cantankerous racist wind bag character, loveable as he may be), several elements (mainly the acting) left me dumbfounded.


Clint Eastwood is a legend – he starred in some of the best westerns ever put on film, and his collaborations with the late great Sergio Leone have come to define the genre (“The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” being a childhood favorite). Eastwood’s early forays into directing produced two underrated gems, “The Beguiled” and “Play Misty for Me.” Against my better judgment, I admire “Mystic River” (mainly the acting) and the 2006 “Flags of Our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima” twofer (although I’m in the minority that liked the former one better than the latter). I say all this because for some unknown reason, if one does not appreciate one piece of Eastwood’s precious output, one is immediately relegated by a core of devoted fans to the “she doesn’t like him, so of course she doesn’t get it” box. I have liked Eastwood, at times, and I have appreciated his work, when I find it to be worthy. This is not one of those times.

Since approximately 2003, an unwritten rule has emerged: every Eastwood film is (a) a masterpiece; (b) a work of genius; (c) worthy of every possible award known to man; and (d) proof that Eastwood can act! The rating of “Gran Torino” at the notoriously picky Metacritic site is a healthy 72%. Having sat through something as amateurish as “Gran Torino” it occurred to me: am I truly one of the few who noticed that the emperor has no clothes? How a major film that features (frankly) embarrassingly bad acting, some of the most stereotypical characters I’ve ever seen, and laughably bad dialogue, all held together by the most predictable screenplay of the year can be received so positively by film critics is truly beyond me. I suppose it speaks to either star-power or willful blindness (or a combination of both).

The Plot

“Gran Torino” tells the story of Walt Kowalski, a Korean War veteran (silver medal recipient, no less) who has become recently widowed. Walt’s prized possession is his pristine 1972 Gran Torino, a car he actually worked on during his time at the Ford assembly line. Walt grunts, grimaces, and then grunts some more at his ungrateful children (of course), greedy daughter-in-law (of course), ill-mannered/materialistic grandchildren, and seemingly everyone and anyone that crosses his path. How his wife put up with his nonsense all those years, I guess we’ll never know.

Walt lives alone in his modest house, his faithful dog Daisy his only companion. Daisy, by the way, gives the best performance in the film. She’s a natural. Walt’s only other visitor is Father Janovich (Christopher Carley), a red-headed young priest who – acting on a promise to Walt’s wife – tries to be there for Walt. Unfortunately, Walt won’t have anything to do with him. As the young priest repeatedly addresses him as “Walt,” he indignantly corrects him (“It’s Mr. Kowalski”). See, Walt does not respect this fresh-faced guy who knows nothing about life and death. Will he come around? You’ll have to see the movie!

Walt is a sore thumb in the neighborhood – we assume most of his (most likely Caucasian) neighbors have died off or moved on, having been replaced by Asian immigrants. The next door neighbors are the Lors, a family of Hmong origin. I’m still not sure how many people live in the house, but let’s just say six to be safe. They include the grandmother (of course), the brainy sister (check!) Sue, and the introverted, lost young man, Thao. We learn that the patriarch of the house died some time ago, and so quite improbably and through implausible circumstances, Walt, whose every sentences appears to include the word “gook” or iterations thereof, becomes a father figure of sorts to the two siblings.

The villains of the piece are too numerous to mention, but let’s just say they include: Latino gangbangers, African-American gangbangers/would-be rapists, emasculated young white men, and Asian gangbangers/rapists. To be sure, it is one of the Asian gangbangers that gets the plot going. He is a cousin of Thao and Sue and for some unknown reason, him and his gangbanging cohorts have nothing better to do than to try to recruit the meek Thao into their gang. After some persuasive attempts, Thao reluctantly agrees. His initiation? Why, stealing the Gran Torino, of course! Naturally, he gets caught by the vigilant Walt, who almost blows his head off with a heavy duty rifle.

When Thao refuses to join the gang one last time(they’re worse than the Army recruiters, these guys!), a violent brawl ensues which Walt heroically stops, saving Thao from the clutches of the gangbangers. This sets the stage for a seemingly interminable montage of neighborhood and family members generously leaving gifts (flowers and food) at Walt’s doorstep as symbols of gratitude for saving Thao. Walt finds the gifts a nuisance and quickly disposes of them, but he slowly begins to warm up (to the food more than to the people) and eventually takes young Thao under his wing.

The Performances

Not one of these moments, nor the subsequent resolution and mawkishly sentimental denouement, rings true for a second. This is a vehicle strictly designed as a showcase for Eastwood. I hate to be that cynical, but nothing else can explain why the film was made. I think I’ll call it “Seven Pounds” syndrome – the type of horrific screenplay that only gets made because some gullible powerhouse star fails to see how very bad the story is. So instead of a good film, for two hours we are left in the company of a main character whose every other word is a racial epithet (comedy gold, right?), but who, golly-gee, is truly good at heart.

To the writer's credit, some of the dialogue is funny -- I think I chuckled twice at Walt's attempts to "man up" Thao. Still, I was particularly bewildered by the acting. The younger cast, try as they may, fares horribly. Their performances and line delivery are wooden and unconvincing. Eastwood’s own performance is distractingly bad. I could almost see the marks on the floor whenever he stood in a particular spot. Take for instance a scene where he takes Thao to a hardware store. Be it the blocking or just bad acting choices, it is one of the most unnaturally acted sequences I’ve seen in a while. Eastwood has given good performances before, this is not one of them. To his credit, those films had strong screenplays, something “Gran Torino” definitely lacks.

There’s also a strange undercurrent in a film that tries so hard to find the humor in racism. A sequence where Walt, standing tall in his porch, oversees young Thao doing chores for him around the neighborhood (as repayment for trying to steal the Gran Torino) is cringe worthy. Without the loaded racial themes exploited in the film, Walt’s gaze may have seem benevolent or even admiring, but in this case, it comes off – at least for me and due to my own life experience – as something much darker.

Overall

There is a semblance of what could have been in the finished product. Walt is clearly struggling from his years as a soldier – having killed people haunts him, and he, unlike the gangbanging teenagers, understands the high cost of taking a life. But this kicks in too little, too late. It just doesn’t feel like the film (or the Walt character) earned the melodramatic culmination.

This was a hopeless endeavor, and the warbled Gran Torino song (I’m not kidding) that plays over the credits made me shake my head for the one hundredth time, as I asked myself: is he really singing this song?