Director: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang & Ahney Her
Clint Eastwood delivers an enjoyably grumpy performance in his latest directorial effort which is an enjoyable drama featuring themes of atonement, violence in society and also an unlikely yet touching friendship.
Atonement has been a regular theme in the films of Clint Eastwood, living with things you’ve done, living with things you’re about to do. It was a major theme in Unforgiven, and was again in Eastwood’s more recent films like Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby and Flags of Our Fathers and atonement appears again as a major theme in Gran Torino. Walt Kowalski (Eastwood) is a man forever living with the burden of the actions he had committed fighting in the Korean War. More than fifty years later, he’s never allowed himself to be absolved of his sins and find peace despite marrying and having a family. Now, with his wife recently deceased and his children distant and more concerned with their careers than with family, Walt is left alone, and bitter, living in a neighborhood and a country that is very different from the one he fought for. As the local priest points out to Walt, in efforts to persuade Walt to give confession, Walt knows a lot more about death than he does about life
When a family of Hmong move in next door, Walt initially sees it as a further inconvenience to his life especially when, forced by a local gang, a boy from next door attempts to steal Walt’s car, an antique Gran Torino. When the gang return to threaten the boy, Thao (Bee Vang), for failing and Walt intervenes when the fight carries onto his property. When he finds himself being treated as hero afterwards by the Hmong community who feel he acted to save Thao, Walt is reluctantly forced to accept their gifts, at the further urgings of Thao’s sister Sue (Ahney Her) and to allow Thao to work off his dishonor for attempting to steal Walt’s car. Despite an initial dislike of the boy and his family and the trouble they have brought him, Walt soon sees potential in both Thao and Sue to go on to do good in their lives and that their attempts to good by Walt and in the community which makes them better people than Walt’s own family and also sees the threat the local gang represents to them being able to have a good life which, after a few incidents of violence against his neighbors, leads Walt to decide to solve the gang problem and perhaps absolve himself of his own past sins.
Clint Eastwood gives a highly enjoyable performance as Walt Kowalski. Always grimacing, talking with a growl and delivering threats and insults regularly towards his neighbors and others he encounters, Eastwood’s Walt could easily be a retired Harry Callahan from Dirty Harry or William Munny from Unforgiven in his temperament though, while the performance sometimes strays close to a caricature of Eastwood’s earlier roles, Eastwood knows when to show restraint and even vulnerability making Walt a truly enjoyable, if unlikeable, character. In addition to Eastwood, there are strong performances from Bee Vang as Thao, who carefully and impressively portrays Thao’s development from the reclusive character he begins the film as to the more confident man he is on his way to becoming by the end thanks to Walt’s influence. Ahney Her is good as Thao’s sister Sue, smart, confident and kind and the force that opens Walt up to accepting his neighbors and Thao and there is also good support from Christopher Carley as a young priest who is persistent in trying to get Walt to accept forgiveness for his past despite the tirade of insults Walt directs at him at every opportunity.
Eastwood sucks in the audience through the characters and the careful, touching relationship he builds between Walt and Thao and Sue and despite a build up to a confrontation between Walt and the local gang that seems predestined, the ending itself surprises you by being different than expected yet far more satisfying. Overall, while sometimes not subtle, and following a path that might seem predictable, Gran Torino succeeds in entertaining with strong performances and an interesting ending that subverts expectations with strong results.
Rating: 4/5
