gran torino

Three decades after Archie Bunker stopped gracing TV sets, Clint Eastwood proves that racism can still be funny and moving.

In his second directing stint of 2008, and his first turn acting since 2004's Oscar-winner Million Dollar Baby, Eastwood stars as grizzled, bitter widower Walt Kowalski in Gran Torino. Walt simply wants to be left alone by his pastor, his family and most of all his Hmong neighbors. When one of his neighbors, Thao (Bee Vang), attempts to steal his prized car as part of a gang initiation, Walt finds it difficult to avoid the deteriorating safety in Detroit, the city he has called home for decades. After saving Thao's sister Sue (Ahney Her) from local thugs, Walt strikes a begrudging and unlikely friendship with his neighbors.

The central figure in this film is not Eastwood's character but the veteran actor himself. As Eastwood has aged, his filmmaking has matured to reevaluate the violence of his younger years. Unforgiven and Dirty Harry both focus on the classic Western vigilante approach to solving unlawfulness. Eastwood's trademark scowl and grimace are a constant in Torino, as if to suggest that Walt may as well be Harry Callahan retired to urban Detroit. There are times you expect Walt to ask the gangbangers to go on and make his day. This parallel allows the meditation on violence, aging and acceptance to be far more powerful than if any other actor had starred.

The film succeeds because it has the surprising ability to combine comedy, humanity and a message on violence. When Eastwood wants to be funny, he draws laughs. When he wants to be provocative, he makes you think. Although perhaps not as emotionally moving as some of his other works, at its worst Gran Torino is wholly entertaining.