Gran Torino (2008)

Film Perfection

Best movie of this year hands down!

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Great movie all around. Eastwood deserved an Oscar. It will make you laugh, and cry.

I'm not going into a sophisticated review of this film, there are plenty of those already here. I'd rather just talk about what I felt. This film moved me. I have seen this movie before, and I think it is a movie where you don't really 'get it' the first time you see it. Sure, I wanted another installment of Harry Callahan, just as we all did. This film is different. I think that many of Eastwood's films are too sophisticated for the reviewers. There, I said it. I've seen this in Pale Rider, and many of his films. I think we all need to grow up a little when seeing an Eastwood film. In so doing, I think we wake up a little bit, and learn something from them. I'm going to re-watch some of his other films now; enough of me blabbing here.

There may not be any native Californian Indians chasing Clint in this film but if this story line were played to the backdrop western theme score "Tombstone" you would swear you were watching Clint playing the character Joe from his 1964 western For A Few Dollars More. Clint plays a grouchy old Polish descent Korean war vet named Walt Kowalski, who with each passing decade has seen his neighborhood gentrified which is difficult for an old war vet like Walt to adjust to being surrounded by the people he shot at decades ago when he was shipped overseas.When one of his next door neighbours teenage kid attempts to steal his priceless Gran Torino you think there would be hell to pay? Instead Walt Kowalski sees in this young man named Thao (played by Bee Vang) a lost soul who needs his help to stay on the right path and to stay as far away from the neighborhood criminal elements.We learn through time that as the old western saying goes...."Walt's bark is a lot worse than his bite." Walt Kowalsky is a widower who is a foul mouthed (appears to be) racist old Korean war vet who happens to be estranged from his adult sons and his grandchildren so Walt develops an inner fondness for his foreign born neighbors and we see his heart shine through when trouble comes a calling in Walt Kowalsky's neighbourhood. Clint Eastwood directed himself in Gran Torino and he is more than prepared to share the limelight with his co-stars which is an admirable quality in the (then) 78 year old actor/director who is still going strong today ten (10) years later.We love you Clint, so don't go riding/driving out in to the sunset just yet. I believe you have a few more songs to sing before the sun goes down for the last time even at your current age of 88.I give Gran Torino an 8 out of 10 rating.

This is beyond doubt one of his greatest works. The ending always gets me. Where he sacrifices his life to prove a point and to leave the people he loved in a better place. We all get to that point where we hope we can leave the world and the people around us better off. I really feel for Daisy because all of sudden she has to idea what happened to Walt, but she was left with good people. I wish he had left the car for me, but I didn't need it so it went to a (now) better person. Yes once again the movie left me with a tear in the eyes as it always does. The reason why the title, I first heard him sing in "Paint Your Wagon" ,decades ago, and he didn't really have the voice for it, but hell it didn't stop his success in film making. It is a great movie for the times even tho it's ten years old now.