Clint Eastwood has been a monumental presence in film for the past 40 years. He made his mark playing tough characters in Sergio Leone's Man With No Name trilogy and in Dirty Harry, but what has been most interesting is how he's played with his icon status in his later years.
In Unforgiven, Eastwood played a mournful gunslinger, an older, more somber version of the various Western characters he's played. In his latest, Gran Torino, he plays Walt Kowalski, a retired Detroit auto worker with all the traits of one of his trademark roles, Dirty Harry Callahan.
Kowalski is a character still in mourning for his wife. He spends his days fixing up his house and keeping a bigoted eye on his neighbors, the Hmongs. When he stops one of the neighborhood kids, Thao, from stealing his prized Gran Torino, he finds the kid indebted to him. The relationship that Walt has with Thao doesn't change his bigoted ways much, but he does find a kinship with Thao and his family that he doesn't have with his own.
The shadows of Dirty Harry enter when the local gangs become involved. Thao's attempted robbery of Kowalski's car was part of a gang initiation and the gang continues to harass Thao and his family because the initiation failed. Both Dirty Harry and Kowalski have to take matters into their own hands to do what's right; but while Dirty Harry did it for his belief in justice, Kowalski does it for his love of the Hmong family.
Eastwood's physical presence and gravelly voice continue to be a powerful force on screen, especially impressive at age 78. Eastwood also directs this film and he reinforces the belief that his understated, yet powerful, work behind the camera might be more impressive than his work in front of it.
The movie's biggest flaw is the clunky screenplay by Nick Schenk and Dave Johannson, who paint some of their supporting characters in overly wide brush strokes. The biggest victim of this is Kowalski's biological family, which seems to be ripped from an episode of some horrible reality show.
Many of the film's flaws can be brushed aside when watching Eastwood, a man who may seem way past his prime but can still make any filmgoer's day.
3 Culture
Ethan Goldsmith
