A Review of Gran Torino

Gran Torino is a movie that really feels like Clint Eastwood's secret fantasy. He's sick of us punk kids, thinks we're all a bunch of wusses, and hates minorities. Okay, I don't know for sure if Clint actually hates minorities but, after seeing this movie, I kind of like to think he and Walt Kowaski are basically the same guy.

After getting out of Gran Torino, I told my friends that I didn't think I would write up a review for it. It's just kind of a hard movie to review. It's incredibly unrealistic, has some bad acting and other flaws... but it's really entertaining and fun. This movie made racism fun. 

Okay, that sounded bad. 

At least, it seemed that way. Every time Clint said something racist (which was every other couple of seconds) everyone in the audience started to laugh and chuckle. Yes, I know that the movie was trying to show that racism was bad and could ultimately be overcome (I think?) but it sure made it funnier than it probably intended to.

Here's the thing: if you believe that an incredibly racist, old man can befriend some Asian kids and take on a gang, then you'll probably buy all of this movie. Personally, I couldn't believe the situation. It just felt like Eastwood was getting out a lot of his frustrations with society, today's youth and other things. It felt like the most pro-old people movie I've ever seen. Which is cool. I mean, they gotta have their "old people kick ass" movie. There's really not many of those. Speaking of old people, the screening I went to was filled with them and they really seemed to love it. So that's cool. I'm glad they have their movie. 

Other than the unrealistic nature of the film, the other biggest flaw is the acting. When I first saw the trailer for this movie, I thought it was a joke. Eastwood growled in every frame, an overly sour look on his plastered on his face. When he talked, his voice was gravely to the point that it put Bale's Batman to shame (and, for the record, I'm totally cool with Bale's Batman voice; get over it people). However, with that said, I actually really enjoyed his performance. Sure, he was over-the-top at times and the extent to his grouchiness and racism was ridiculous but man he was fun to watch. Clint's a complete bad ass and it shows in this movie. I definitely don't think he should be nominated for any awards for his performance but it is entertaining to watch. Everyone else is pretty bad though. The younger Asian actors can't really act. Newcomers Ahney Her and Bee Vang as Sue and Thao (Toad) Lor really aren't very convincing and this hurts the impact of the story. The scene where Bee bangs against the locked basement door was really cheesy because his acting was pretty laughable.

Also, if you haven't heard, Clint Eastwood actually sings the song played at the end of this movie. Granted, it's much worse listening to the song alone (it kind of works in a strange way while listening to it at the end of the movie) but it's still kind of ridiculous. I mean, he's doing a growl whisper that he basically does as the character in the movie while a soft piano plays in the background. How does that even happen? It really is one of the most insane things I've ever heard. You can listen to it here. 

My last compliant with the movie has to do with the ending. Now, don't get me wrong, I know what Eastwood was trying to do with the ending. I know what he was trying to say about violence, vengeance and doing the right thing in general. However, after sitting through the entire movie until this point, I was really hoping for something more Charles Bronson-esque. That may be immature of me but, considering I thought most of the movie until that point was kind of ridiculous, it was just what I was hoping for. I know a lot of people will disagree with me on this but, hey, I'm sorry. It's just how I felt when I saw the movie.

After reading all of this, you may have thought that I didn't like this movie. That is not true at all. This was one of best times I've had at the theater in a really long time. Gran Torino is very entertaining, well-paced and surprisingly funny (in both intentional and unintentional ways). It was just really fun to watch Clint do his thing, whether it was being a super-racist or just a complete bad ass. The scene where he confronts the black guys harassing Sue on the street corner was one of my favorites. He did that fake finger gun thing for so long. My friends and I have been doing that to each other all week. I also really enjoyed the scene where he visited the neighbors when they were having a barbecue. I felt that the humor was especially strong in this scene.

As the movie played before me, I never once found myself bored or thinking about the time. It was just a blast to watch. For something that I wasn't taking completely serious, that says a lot. It was just a lot of fun. The crowd seemed to be having a good time too. From the moment I sat down, everyone seemed to get the film's humor and there were laughs and hoots throughout. Eastwood's charisma was also evident through the crowd's reactions. Everyone seemed to be into everything he did.

As you can see, this was kind of a hard movie to review. I didn't completely buy the situation presented and I did feel as if Eastwood's own views (at least on today's youth being worthless and "weak") got in the way at times. Plus, the acting wasn't very good from the film's non-seasoned actors. However, despite all of this, I throughly enjoyed this movie. It was a lot of fun to experience and I don't think I would mind sitting down again to watch it sometime. I may not agree with Eastwood's views sometimes and I definitely don't like a lot of his films (Letters from Iwo Jima was vastly overrated) but the man has a strong charisma about him and you just can't help but root for him. 

It's not perfect but it's definitely a good time at the movies.

7/10