Gran Torino

I have a reserved attitude toward guaranteed blockbusters that the film community considers serious contenders for the best film of the year. I usually prefer films outside the mainstream and am often enthused by a true film outsider. However, in the case of Gran Torino, I have to admit that it is a very decent melodrama, where Clint Eastwood has capitalized on his extensive experience in directing and acting. It's not that the old good Clint is such a great director, but he is rather a very high-quality and reliable craftsman who knows his limits well and steers his film into waters where he feels at home. His character is actually a direct continuation of his most popular protagonists, i.e., the headhunters from old Sergio Leone westerns and, above all, the tough inspector Harry Callahan. Add 40 years to Callahan and you have the grumpy retiree and devotee of true American values, Walt Kowalski. The plot is predictable for most of the runtime and its message is clear to any slightly experienced viewer after a few minutes, but Eastwood manages to enrich his film with a series of pleasant, audience-friendly scenes, such as the initiation of an Asian teenager into the language of real men or amusing multi-ethnic clashes between the grumpy American and his Asian neighbors. Where the director maintains a tragicomic tone, his story and performance are believable and highly sympathetic. However, when elements of a fateful drama and self-sacrifice creep in, the film teeters on the edge of self-parody - for example, the moment when the nearly 80-year-old man with cancer-ridden lungs knocks down a member of a criminal gang three generations younger. Generally, Clint Eastwood's films and his characters are indeed the perfect essences of the purest American values, and his films should be obligatory screenings at Republican Party conventions. They include firearms, a tough cowboy attitude, outspoken patriotism, and social conservatism. However, if the director can lighten and complement them with, for instance, a parody of political correctness, when he and his old friend from the barbershop make subtle jokes about their nationalities, it is not only digestible but also good. Overall impression: 80%. (04/27/2009)

Clint's Farewell, or Empties by the American badass. The film has a tendency to slide into cliché and calculation, but the character of a grumpy old man who finds redemption (?) in his old age has the kind of gradation that will make you swallow the two hours of mentoring and lamenting the good old days to the max. Objectively, there are many things that could be criticized about it, but subjectively, it affected me so much that I don't want to have any reservations regarding it. (05/15/2009)

Clint Eastwood really knows what he's doing and with this film he surpasses even his previous hits. Gran Torino immediately catches the eye with its fantastic and interesting portrayal of each character, but what’s worth watching above all is the gradual mental transformation and inner struggle of Clint himself, who was given an extremely illegible role by the script and, together with the convincing Christopher Carley, created one of the most perfect cinematic duos I've ever seen. Despite a premise that smacks of boredom, the film moves along at a high pace, is really well directed and emotional, and the incredibly human expression of friendship and belonging that slowly but surely rises to the surface won't let you skip a beat. And the ending?!... That one really got me. (06/08/2011)

And I’d like to leave my 1972 Gran Torino to my friend Thao Vang Loro. On the condition that you don't chop-top the roof like one of those beaners, don't paint any idiotic flames on it like some white trash hillbilly, and don't put a big, gay spoiler on the rear end like you see on all the other zipperheads' cars. It just looks like hell. If you can refrain from doing any of that... it's yours. (11/09/2009)

While in Million Dollar Baby, Clint Eastwood never left the boxing ring, here he never leaves his own front porch. Gran Torino is even more intimate than his recent boxing opus and delivers an even harder knockout blow to the audience. Eastwood portrays one of his most interesting characters in an incredibly smoothly flowing movie – the easy-to-follow setting of the simple story emphasizes the seamless continuity of individual scenes composing an intriguing character study of Eastwood’s Kowalski. Everything in this movie has its place and meaning, including a brief lawn-mowing shot. Not to mention the song in the end credits... (02/16/2009)