Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino

I have a new hero.

And he's not my hero because he can lop the wings off a fly with a 6-shooter from 100 yards away; or because he is one bad-ass "mofo" who can make you want to pee your pants with just one sneer. Hell, it's not even because at 110 78 years old he can still look damned sexy in a suit!

Nope. It's not for any of those reasons. Clint Eastwood is my hero for the simple reason that in his new movie release Gran Torino, where he is both director and starring role, he did not see fit to "kill the dog."

Why is it movies almost ALWAYS kill the dog? To incite us, I am sure, to hate the bad guy even more. And for me, it works! So needless to say when I went to see Gran Torino today, and saw that the main character Walt Kowalski, played by the epic Clint, had a beautiful yellow lab named Daisy, I was convinced she would end up dead at the hands of the bad guys.

I am very happy to say I was wrong.

I can honestly say that Gran Torino was not the movie I expected. What I expected, as implied by the trailer, was a movie of gang violence and typical Clint Eastwood gun toting' ass kicking action. I got just that, but not on the "physical" level I anticipated; rather it was more on a "mental" level.

Gran Torino, named after Walt's 1972 car that symbolizes his glorified past, has the familiar feel of most every bad-ass role Clint has ever played:

• Bill Munny (The Unforgiven) - a man haunted by his past sins but still unable to forgo one last ride.

• Frankie Dunn (Million Dollar Baby) - a disappointment to his family as well as himself.

• Tom Highway (Heartbreak Ridge) - a career soldier whose life is defined by war.

• Dirty Harry (Duhhh) - who exhibits contempt at the ugliness of a valueless society and tries to right it with his own hands.
  

Here, Clint's character is a hardened Korean War veteran, who feels he has outlived his own usefulness once his beloved wife passes. Walt just wants to be left alone and reinforces that fact by speaking his mind, which is usually overrun with negative thoughts and racial slurs, centered around the annoying Asians overtaking his neighborhood and the violent gangs adding to the filth. His estranged son tries to convince him to move, with enticing brochures of plush retirement homes promising a "pampered" lifestyle, yet Walt won't budge. He has his own ideas about how to his life, and he is not letting anyone change his mind.

Walt is a man standing on the sidelines of the real world around him; trapped in his ideals of a society past where values meant more than a dollar sign and different races of people did not mix. He appears to be a racist, and doesn't care who knows it. We learn Walt is haunted by sins of his past, and that haunting makes him indifferent to being granted life's acceptance, or even that of his neighbors. His property lines are his border, and he will accept no breach. In his world, he is law, and he keeps his trusty shotgun locked and loaded as reinforcement.

It is about this time we are introduced to Walt's neighbor Thao (Bee Vang), a quiet and introverted Hmong teenager who is slow to discover his own true identity while struggling against the bullying of his gang-banger cousin "Spider" to join his gang. It's this bullying that causes Thao to cave and attempt to steal, unsuccessfully, Walt's prized car.

At the persistence of Sue, Thao's spunky sister who forces her way into Walt's life (and heart,) Walt begrudgingly takes Thao under his wing as a way for Thao to "work off his debt owed" for trying to steal Walt's car. Walt is gruff and blunt, and more often than not belittling, yet we see him soften to Thao and his Hmong family, as he realizes he is more at home and himself with these "jabbering gooks" than he is with his own flesh and blood. Walt also begins to accept an almost fatherly role to Thao, as he teaches him to "be a man" and find his own path.

Sound somewhat fairytale? Well, if Clint could pull off  fairytale, Gran Torino would be it. Unfortunately however, that illusion is shattered when Spider and his gang-banging buddies decide to force themselves on Thao's family by beating and raping Sue, and leaving her for dead. Sue - the one person who made Walt feel worthwhile; the one person who brought meaning back into his life.

Suddenly Walt refuses to sit on the sidelines any longer, and we see the classic Clint we love emerge as he prepares to take the law into his own hands. Thao is ready to fight along side Walt, but we learn Thao represents the demon eating away at Walt, the demon he can no longer live with, and as he sets out to right the sins of his past, he forces Thao to stay behind.

53 years of movie roles live in this soon to be classic Clint performance. I found it impossible to look away. The ending's twist from what is expected to what is delivered is a credit to the believability of the film, and a testament to the complexity of roles Clint can convincingly portray.

Gran Torino definitely made my day.

(Oh, and be sure to stick around for the film's title song in the credits - sung by none other than Clint himself. Surprisingly his raspy and gruff voice pulls it off. I'm thinking I might add it to my Sansa player...... here's a link to the song.)