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Gran Torino
Directed by Clint Eastwood
The story of recently widowed Walt Kowalski, a curmudgeonly guy who lives in what was once a smart white working class neighbourhood. Over the course of his lifetime this neighbourhood has become rundown and a place for immigrant families. He gets on with no one, not even his sons who also have no empathy for this gruff old man. His racism is a lifelong inbuilt one, but Walt hates just everyone who doesn't fit into his world. The lives of his neighbours, mostly ethnic Hmong people, don't touch him at all, he's happy to drink beer on his porch and talk to his dog, until the day when the next door neighbour's kid (Thao), is bullied by a gang and forced into trying to steal Walt's beloved 1972 Ford Gran Torino...
This is rumoured to be Clint Eastwood's last acting role and it does feel like a swansong to his own tough persona. This is a man at the end of his life who really doesn't have to like anyone or have any social niceties, but who is drawn into counting himself back into the human race by Thao's sweet faced sassy teenage sister Su. Su and Thao mightn't be played by the most adapt of actors, but these two first timers together with the other non professessional Hmong actors, bring a lovely natural feel to the film.
Walt taking on the shy Thao's education into Walt's world of working men, with the emphasis on macho men, forms the base of the film and has its laughs as well as pathos. Clint Eastwood could only have directed himself in this film, no one else could've made such a spare character and still made it work without knowing that man down to his sinews.
I can't say that I didn't sit there and cringe at the racist remarks that drop easily from Walt's mouth, but my own dad came to mind so many times during the film that Walt's character felt real, and thus his actions at the end had the ring of a moral code set in stone - an old school stand against injustice that takes inner natural courage.
If this is his last acting role, then this is a just end to a singular career.
Directed by Clint Eastwood
The story of recently widowed Walt Kowalski, a curmudgeonly guy who lives in what was once a smart white working class neighbourhood. Over the course of his lifetime this neighbourhood has become rundown and a place for immigrant families. He gets on with no one, not even his sons who also have no empathy for this gruff old man. His racism is a lifelong inbuilt one, but Walt hates just everyone who doesn't fit into his world. The lives of his neighbours, mostly ethnic Hmong people, don't touch him at all, he's happy to drink beer on his porch and talk to his dog, until the day when the next door neighbour's kid (Thao), is bullied by a gang and forced into trying to steal Walt's beloved 1972 Ford Gran Torino...
This is rumoured to be Clint Eastwood's last acting role and it does feel like a swansong to his own tough persona. This is a man at the end of his life who really doesn't have to like anyone or have any social niceties, but who is drawn into counting himself back into the human race by Thao's sweet faced sassy teenage sister Su. Su and Thao mightn't be played by the most adapt of actors, but these two first timers together with the other non professessional Hmong actors, bring a lovely natural feel to the film.
Walt taking on the shy Thao's education into Walt's world of working men, with the emphasis on macho men, forms the base of the film and has its laughs as well as pathos. Clint Eastwood could only have directed himself in this film, no one else could've made such a spare character and still made it work without knowing that man down to his sinews.
I can't say that I didn't sit there and cringe at the racist remarks that drop easily from Walt's mouth, but my own dad came to mind so many times during the film that Walt's character felt real, and thus his actions at the end had the ring of a moral code set in stone - an old school stand against injustice that takes inner natural courage.
If this is his last acting role, then this is a just end to a singular career.