Release Date: Wide release: January 9, 2009 Studio: Warner Bros. MPAA Rating: R Genre: Drama Director: Clint Eastwood Writers: Nick Shenk, Dave Johannson Cast: Clint Eastwood,Bee Vang, Ahney Her,Christopher Carley,John Carroll Lynch,Choua Kue,Scott Eastwood,1972 Gran Torino Synopsis: Walter Kowalski is an old-fashioned kind of guy.
Living in the rapidly moribund suburbs of Michigan, his wife has died.
With only his dog Daisy, his cigarettes and his beer, Walt's hopes for peace and quiet are dashed when the house next door is purchased by an unassuming Hmong family.
What will the rankled Walt learn from these kind strangers and what could they hope to learn from him?
Find out in this rich and funny,yet sad and powerful film directed by Clint Eastwood. The Review: Nite Owl II: "What ever happened to the 'American Dream'?"
The Comedian:" It came true;you're looking at it."
From the graphic novel Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
Walter (Clint Eastwood) Kowalski, a veteran of The Korean War and of the assembly lines of General Motors, is putting his wife to rest. He is not happy, upset at the empty and sanctimonious words of the minister and can hardly keep from sneering at the inappropriate church clothing of his grandchildren.
At the wake, he manages to further alienate his grown sons Mitch (Brian Haley) and Steve (Brian Howe)and their families,with whom he contemptuously views as lazy and spoiled.
Visiting Father Janovitch (Christopher Carley, a freckled Joss Whedon look-alike) insists that Kowalski attend confession, as it was one of Kowalski's wife’s last wishes.
Calling him "padre", Walt (“call me Mr. Kowalski”) wants nothing to do with him or his religion and closes the door in his face.
Walt has become a stranger in his own land--the world has changed around him, but he has not changed with it. Eastwood plays him like an angry dog on a chain, railing against the world ; barking at all the offenses that happens around him.
His suburban neighborhood isn't what it used to be: hispanic and asian gangbangers prowl the streets,aimless young black men harass the innocent, and graffiti and litter is everywhere.
While researching this review, I came across a paper from the 1998 National Commission on Civic Renewal with the unwieldily title “A Nation of Spectators:How civic disengagement weakens American and what we can do about it” has this about urban decline: “ Our moral and civic ills are ... our troubled urban areas ...The breakdown of families, public safety, and neighborhoods is compounded by economic misery and diminished opportunities. The decline... is especially pronounced among individuals who are sliding down the economic ladder, or who have never taken the first step up that ladder.
For Frank, insult has been added to injury, now that the Lors, a Hmong family has moved next door. Of course Walt doesn't know they're Hmong-to him they're "japs"/"zipperheads"/"gooks"/"chinks”/whatever.
It doesn’t matter-- the bigoted vet’s idea of a funny joke for his friends is: “A Mexican, a Jew, and a colored guy go into a bar. The bartender looks up and says, ‘Get the fuck out of here.’ “
The Lors—teenage girl Su (Ahney Her), her younger brother Thao (Bee Vang) their single mom, and her ancient mother have their own problems,too.
Thao is bugged by his cousin “Spider”, a thuggish gangbanger that cruises around the neighborhood in a jacked-up Honda with a spoiler in the back. Spider wants the quiet Thao to join the gang, but Thao resists.
Later, Thao gives up and gives into Spider's bullying. For his initiation, the gang members want him to steal Walt's prize possession, a 1972 Ford Gran Torino. Walt, armed with his Korea service rifle, catches him in the act and just about blows his head off, but Thao scurries away. Walt gets to the front of the house with the rifle and waves it in the faces of the gang members. "Get off my lawn." Kowalski growls.
Driving home, Walt finds Su and her lame-o white homeboy friend Trey menaced by three young black men and they are starting to get rough with her. He intercedes,showing them the pistol he has tucked in his belt, and drives Su home.
Inflexible Walt gets coaxed to a barbeque next-door by the adorable, amiable and smartly funny Su. She invites him in and, with a few too many Pabst Blue Ribbon Beers under his belt,he figures "what the hell". He enjoys the food, learns a little about Hmong culture--like the H is silent, and sees there’s a cute girl with eyes for Thao named Youa--typically, Walt calls her "Yum Yum". Thao is a normal teenage boy—he doesn’t see it, and wouldn’t know how to deal with her, and Walt takes the time to counsel him.
I knew it--in my experience, nothing breaks down racial and socioeconomic barriers better than good food and good-looking women.
Su and Thao's mother want Thao to work for Walt to make up for his attempted his burglary.
Walt is resistant to the idea. "Look, Just get off my lawn," he snarls.
Eventually Kowalski relents and sets Thao (or "Toad" as he calls him) to work.
Slowly the gruff veteran softens and takes the kid under his wing.
He recommends Thao for a construction jobs and buys him a tool belt and tools for his trade.He helps around the Lor house, fixing what appears to be the world's deadliest ceiling fan, and doing some plumbing.
Thao begins to blossom with self-confidence,speaking up for himself and gets the nerve to ask the very pretty Youa (Choua Kue) out on a date.
Walt offers Thao the use of the Gran Torino.
Nevertheless, Thao can't escape his cousin's gang who burn his face with a cigarette and destroy his tools. As Shakespeare once said : " Hell hath no fury like Clint Eastwood pissed off" and Kowalski goes to Spider's house and pounds the hell out of member and tells him to stay away from Thao and his family.
That should solve that problem, right? Well, maybe in the good old days, but not today.
Spider's gang does a drive-by shooting of Thao's house.
Thao is wounded in the neck from broken glass and after several tense moments, Su is dropped off in front of the house, bloody, badly beaten and sexually abused .
The 1998 Nation of Spectators report explained the helplessness of the situation this way: "Too many of us have become passive and disengaged. Too many of us lack confidence in our capacity to make basic moral and civic judgments, to join with our neighbors to do the work of community, to make a difference. Never have we had so many opportunities for participation, yet rarely have we felt so powerless."
Walt, a man of uncompromising values, has never felt powerless and he knows that something has to been done to end this once and for all. Because he's Clint Eastwood, he's the only who can do it. I'm not going to tell you what happens next, but I think Mr. Eastwood knows that a "Dirty Harry" solution isn't always the best solution.
Walking out of GRAN TORINO I was a little stunned. My wife said to me " I think Clint Eastwood is going to die" and despite reading later on imdb.com that his mother died at the age of 97, I believe her.
GRAN TORINO feels like an artist's final statement.Walter Kowalski was a man so defined by his past that he was unable to live in the present. With the help of Su and Thao Lor reconciled his past and his future, letting go of much of the inner hatred that haunted him and sacrificing himself for the greater good. As Captain Spock said in STAR TREK II: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one."
At 78, Clint may have hiked his pants over his stomach to play Walt, but at first glance, you know he can easily kick your shack’s ass. Film icon Eastwood is unafraid to show the sags and the lines that come with age, his face so weather-beaten that it resembles a granite rock formation and his voice so gravelly that even Christian Bale as Batman has been asking “doesn’t it hurt when you talk?”
Since 1971, Eastwood has directed 30 films and he has a sure hand, deftly telling the dark stories of antiheroes seeking redemption. Collaborating with writer Nick Shenk and cinematographer Tom Stern, GRAN TORINO is a powerful drama and a study of the decaying American suburban dream.
John Carroll Lynch best-known as Drew Carey's cross-dressing brother Steve in "The Drew Carey Show" is Walt's haircut-once-every-three-weeks barber Martin and he seems to be the closest thing to a friend that Walt has.
I'm usually not one to quibble over or care about continuity issues, but, in the very funny scene where Walt tries to teach Thao how to speak like a man at the Barber Shop, Lynch's zipper jumps up and down the front of his smock.
Imdb.com's trivia section for GRAN TORINO stated that Clint Eastwood conducted searches for actors among the Hmong communities in Detroit,St,Paul, and Fresno and I admire his need for authenticity.
Newcomers Bee Vang and Ahney Her do very well in their first professional roles, only rarely coming off as if they were "acting".
I wish the very best of luck to both of these talented young people if they wish to pursue the "Hollywood dream".
Clint is a firm believer in nepotism, shamelessly hiring his 40-year-old son Kyle Eastwood to write the music (with Michael Stevens) and employing his 22-year-old offspring Scott Eastwood as Trey, the clueless white boy.
I also want to give a special "Bark out" to the uncredited golden retriever that played Walt's faithful dog Daisy: "Good boy ! Good boy!"
GRAN TORINO left me overwhelmed by Walt’s and the Lors’ plight and the plight of our neighborhoods under siege. Damn it Jim, I'm a film critic--not a social critic, but I did find this interesting idea idea from the National Commission on Civic Renewal’s paper:
“We believe that democracy means not only discussing our differences, but also undertaking concrete projects with our fellow citizens to achieve common goals. The goals can be as focused as cleaning up a neighborhood park, or as broad as defending our country.
Whatever their scope, such endeavors offer the best hope for bringing Americans together across lines of race, class, and religion...uniting diverse individuals into teams shaped by high standards and shared purposes.” Rating:
