Gran Torino (2008)

	Directed by: Clint Eastwood	COUNTRY USA/Australia GENRE Drama NORWEGIAN TITLE Gran Torino RUNNING TIME 96 minutes
	Produced by: Clint Eastwood Bill Gerber Robert Lorenz
	Written by: Nick Schenk

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Walt Kowalski	Clint Eastwood
Father Janovich	Christopher Carley
Thao Vang Lor	Bee Vang	½
Sue Lor	Ahney Her
Mitch Kowalski	Brian Haley
Karen Kowalski	Geraldine Hughes
Ashley Kowalski	Dreama Walker
Steve Kowalski	Brian Howe
Barber Martin	John Carroll Lynch
Tim Kennedy	William Hill
Trey	Scott Reeves

Review

Clint Eastwood continues to impress. He won the Academy Award for Best Director at the age of 74 for Million Dollar Baby, went on to direct two full-length WWII films two years later, and in 2008, at age 78, he made another two pictures: Changeling, starring Angelina Jolie, and Gran Torino, starring Clint himself.

I saw Gran Torino a few days after watching Clint's inherently over-the-top The Gauntlet (1977), and it's slightly ironic that the two films share some clumsy traits. Ironic because, as The Gauntlet pointed Clint towards the arguably most ineffective period of his career, Gran Torino comes at a time when he, over the past 15 years, has manifested his position as one of the most important men in film history. This is proof that even if he sometimes is guilty of portraying people in a simplistic, almost banal manner, he always aims to address important human and sociological issues. At his best, he does this with great subtlety (like in Unforgiven), but even when his tales become somewhat murky, they still always have a forcefulness.

Gran Torino is one such movie. The characters and environments it portrays are extreme and overdone, almost unyielding. Eastwood's portrait of Walt Kowalski feels almost like a parody of Clint's many former characters, and the issues he addresses – while relevant – are not presented in the subtlest of manners. But then Kowalski grows on us, and we realize that although Clint's acting hasn't changed in tone or become more diverse, it still is imbued with undeniable force and restrained emotion. When you start to read between the lines of Gran Torino, it becomes clear that this disgruntled, negative and racist old man basically is a logical continuation of the characters Clint has portrayed through the years – or at least the violent, warmongering society they stem from.

There is both hope and compassion in Gran Torino, but after years of isolation and aggression, the characters have hidden this deep beneath their skin. The film is about how they rediscover these qualities and find a place for them in an otherwise cold society. Eastwood extracts a resonantly mature tone and interpretation from Nick Schenk's solid script, and in the end, Gran Torino is a remarkably effective and affecting film, despite somewhat inadequate acting by the younger performers.