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Movie review: ‘Gran Torino’
BY MAGGIE SCOTT
He looks like a piece of beef jerky. He expresses displeasure with a low resolution snarl out of a perpetually sneering face. He prefers a firearm to a fire hose to break up fights on his lawn. Yes, Walter Kowalski is one tough customer. But, during the course of Clint Eastwood’s new drama, Gran Torino (opening this Friday), you suspect there’s a marshmallow beneath that granite exterior.
As Walt, Eastwood is going for something a bit more and less complicated than his signature Dirty Harry persona. Walt isn’t just at war with the criminal elements of his declining Detroit neighborhood. He’s at war with himself.
A decorated Korean War veteran and retired Ford Motor plant employee, Walt has just lost his wife of many years and hasn’t had much use for his sons and grandchildren. A lapsed Catholic, and a virulent bigot, Walt cares for little in his life beyond his dog, his beer and his classic ’72 Gran Torino Sport car.
While he treats friend (his Italian barber) and foe (black punks) alike to ethnic slurs, he reserves his most expressive insults for his next-door neighbors: a large family of Hmong immigrants.
From a petite grandma who rants at Walt in her native language and Sue (Ahney Her) her hip Americanized granddaughter, to Thao (Bee Vang), Sue’s bashful brother, Walt addresses them all with colorful terms like “chinks,” “eggrolls,” “swamp rats” and “fish heads.” Sue isn’t intimidated and Thao, whom Walt calls “Toad,” is a good kid who lets the words roll off his back.
Thao is having a hard time staying out of the clutches of his cousin, who is determined to initiate the teen into his gang. Part of that initiation involves the Gran Torino.
Since they’ve taken the war to Walt’s turf, and the neighbors are treating him like some kind of hero for helping Thao, Walt reluctantly, roughly and resolutely begins to face his failings and to reach deep for basic human decency and redemptive courage that doesn’t resort to violence.
It’s hard to like Walt much, and equally hard not to like Eastwood as Walt. While the character is pretty hard-bitten, the story (by Nick Schenk) is a bit soft and simplified on its culture clash and violence angles. But, Eastwood still knows how to make our day.
A Warner Bros. release, rated R for language and violence.
