Gran Torino (15.)
Directed by Clint Eastwood.
Starring Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Abney Her, Christopher Carley, John Carroll Lynch. 116 mins.
Though superficially opposites, Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen have almost identical careers – both are limited screen performers but highly effective within their narrow ranges and both are industrious, efficient filmmakers, turning them out at a rate of around one a year. Though of late critics have been of a mind to acclaim him as some kind of genius, the man of muted movies, Gran Torino reminds us that Clint’s career is as much about Firefox or The Rookie as The Changeling or Mystic River.
Now in his late seventies, Eastwood looks and moves exactly like Henry Fonda in On Golden Pond, yet remains convincing macho. Mooted as possibly his last film role, he plays Walt Kowalski, a cross between Victor Meldrew and Harry Callahan cast into the plot of Love Thy Neighbour.
He is a grouchy, racist Korean War veteran, living next door to a Hmong family (an ethnic group spread across a number of countries in South East Asia), in a neighbourhood that has been taken over by Asian immigrants. But after an attempt to steal his most prized possession, his 1972 Gran Torino (it’s a car), he finds himself being drawn into their life (they get him with the food) and trying to keep their children safe from the encroaching gang culture.
The film is director Eastwood at his most no thrills; really basic stuff. Almost all the humour derives from Clint using racial epithets. GT is a hard film to get a fix on. At first it starts out like its going to be another one of his issue movies, then it flirts with being a geriatric Dirty Harry before throwing in heaps of Every Which Way But Loose style knockabout humour and then finally (possible spoiler) readdressing and reassessing his big speech from Unforgiven.
So the film takes on the mantle of a summation of his whole career; Clint’s final round up. I suspect there’s a little nod to every aspect of his half century career somewhere in GT. He even sings briefly, lest we forget Paint Your Wagon. His character’s movement from gun totting reactionary bigot to a man open to new experiences reflects his own on-screen journey. There’s a (justified) sense of pride in all his achieved but also a touching uncertainty over what he represents. Without Clint it’d be absolutely ridiculous but as a tour around an American icon it carries a surprising, even subversive, weight.
American Sniper review
Flags of our Father review
Letters of Iwo Jima review
Invictus review
J Edgar review
Hereafter review
Directed by Clint Eastwood.
Starring Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Abney Her, Christopher Carley, John Carroll Lynch. 116 mins.
Though superficially opposites, Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen have almost identical careers – both are limited screen performers but highly effective within their narrow ranges and both are industrious, efficient filmmakers, turning them out at a rate of around one a year. Though of late critics have been of a mind to acclaim him as some kind of genius, the man of muted movies, Gran Torino reminds us that Clint’s career is as much about Firefox or The Rookie as The Changeling or Mystic River.
Now in his late seventies, Eastwood looks and moves exactly like Henry Fonda in On Golden Pond, yet remains convincing macho. Mooted as possibly his last film role, he plays Walt Kowalski, a cross between Victor Meldrew and Harry Callahan cast into the plot of Love Thy Neighbour.
He is a grouchy, racist Korean War veteran, living next door to a Hmong family (an ethnic group spread across a number of countries in South East Asia), in a neighbourhood that has been taken over by Asian immigrants. But after an attempt to steal his most prized possession, his 1972 Gran Torino (it’s a car), he finds himself being drawn into their life (they get him with the food) and trying to keep their children safe from the encroaching gang culture.
The film is director Eastwood at his most no thrills; really basic stuff. Almost all the humour derives from Clint using racial epithets. GT is a hard film to get a fix on. At first it starts out like its going to be another one of his issue movies, then it flirts with being a geriatric Dirty Harry before throwing in heaps of Every Which Way But Loose style knockabout humour and then finally (possible spoiler) readdressing and reassessing his big speech from Unforgiven.
So the film takes on the mantle of a summation of his whole career; Clint’s final round up. I suspect there’s a little nod to every aspect of his half century career somewhere in GT. He even sings briefly, lest we forget Paint Your Wagon. His character’s movement from gun totting reactionary bigot to a man open to new experiences reflects his own on-screen journey. There’s a (justified) sense of pride in all his achieved but also a touching uncertainty over what he represents. Without Clint it’d be absolutely ridiculous but as a tour around an American icon it carries a surprising, even subversive, weight.
American Sniper review
Flags of our Father review
Letters of Iwo Jima review
Invictus review
J Edgar review
Hereafter review
