Gran Torino is Eastwood at the Top of His Game

Let’s get one unequivocal fact on the record right now: Clint Eastwood is the coolest guy in the history of humankind. That being said, it stands to reason that seeing Clint on the big screen is a monumental moviegoing event. This is especially true with Gran Torino, because it’s Eastwood’s first role as an actor since his Oscar-nominated turn in Million Dollar Baby in 2004. Gran Torino is still in limited release, and it’s only currently playing in two theaters in my state. I drove for three hours to go see it, and it was more than worth it. And I wasn’t alone…the theater was packed, and everyone there responded to the film in a tremendously tangible way, laughing and cheering and holding their breath.

The movie is just a delight to watch, partly because no one makes movies like this anymore, and partly because it offers a golden opportunity to see an icon who is in complete control and knows the components of the image he has cultivated over a fifty-year career so perfectly that he can subvert and explore them and reach for new depths of character. Watching Eastwood in Gran Torino is as pleasurable as that first sip of wine after crossing the desert.

In the film (which of course Eastwood also directs with the fluid grace and minimalism that has become his trademark), Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a crusty, hard-boiled and racist Korean War veteran who worked in the Ford plant in Detroit for fifty years. And just like in Unforgiven, Eastwood’s masterful swan song to the Western, the film begins right after his beloved wife has passed on. At the funeral, it becomes apparent that Walt is estranged from his two grown sons and his grandchildren, who come to the proceedings underdressed and care more about texting on their phones than paying their respects.

Without his twit family, Walt is alone except for his golden lab Daisy. In fact, Walt it almost pathologically isolated. When he’s not polishing the vintage Gran Torino he helped build on the assembly line decades ago, Walt spends his days sitting on his porch chewing tobacco and drinking beer. He shakes his head in disgust as he watches the neighborhood where he has lived his entire adult life get taken over by an influx of Hmong immigrants. Walt looks at them and all he sees are the guys he killed in Korea.

His neighbors are teenagers Tao and Sue. Sue is mature and smart, whereas Tao is shy and insecure. The main conflict involves Tao’s cousin and his fellow gangbangers trying to co-opt Tao into the gang. Tao resists at first but can’t continue to withstand the pressure. His initiation test is to steal Walt’s Gran Torino. But when he tries, Walt introduces Tao to his M-1 rifle. Walt may not be a spring chicken anymore, but even a fool can see that this is one dude you don’t mess with (come on folks, it’s Clint Eastwood). As penance, Tao must work for Walt fixing things around the house. During this time, Walt and Tao slowly start to build a bond, but the gang threatens to destroy Tao’s life.

You can probably guess where the film goes from here. This is not a film you watch for plot twists. You know more or less where the journey will go, so the pleasure comes from watching exactly how things unfold. Walt is one of the best characters Eastwood has ever played. He’s about as refreshingly not politically correct as any role you’ve seen. It’s a risky part, but Eastwood succeeds in making you care for him. Walt is tailor-made for Clint. It’s as if he’s a guy who learned to be a man by watching Clint Eastwood movies. Walt serves as a vehicle for Eastwood to explore and tweak the masculine mythos he created in movies like Dirty Harry, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Heartbreak Ridge, and White Hunter, Black Heart. This phenomenon is particularly enthralling in the case of movie stars of Eastwood’s caliber because the viewing public plays such a critical role in negotiating their personas and, whether consciously or unconsciously, feel that stars bring a piece of all of their precious roles to each subsequent film that they make. Eastwood knows this, and boy does he use it to his advantage.

The film is consistently engaging and funny to a degree you might not expect, especially in the scenes between Walt and Tao and Walt and the baby-faced priest who promised Walt’s late wife that he would get Walt to go to confession. But just like life, the film often turns on a dime. One moment is gut-busting and hilarious, the next is intense and disturbing.

Eastwood moves through this movie as effortlessly and smoothly as Charlie Parker played the saxophone. It’s a masterful performance, both as actor and director. All of the non-professional Hmong actors are mostly convincing and work well, but this is Clint’s film all the way. I don’t care about Brad Pitt, Mickey Rourke, or Sean Penn, the Oscar race this year should be between Frank Langella for Frost/Nixon and Clint.