Clint Eastwood’s hinted that Gran Torino might be his last turn in front of the camera. If that’s true, he could not have chose for himself a more fitting farewell. Without a hint of the self-referential, Torino touches on the many iconic moments of both his best genre pictures and more serious fare. Most of all, he’s masterfully blended both into a hard-hitting, supremely satisfying story that carries big themes with a deft gentleness.
Working from a superb script by relative newcomer Nick Schenk, Gran Torino opens in just the kind of Catholic church you expect to see in an old Detroit suburb. Walt Kowalski (Eastwood) is there to bury his beloved wife and to disapprove of the rest of his family. Having toughed his way through as a soldier in Korea and decades on the Ford assembly line, the strongest emotion he can summon for his spoiled kin is sarcastic disapproval with a side order of contempt. And they deserve it.
Walt growls. Not figuratively, literally. He growls at the belly-pierced granddaughter who queries him on what he’ll leave her in his will, he growls at his son (Brian Haley) who thinks he’s outgrown the old, simple man who is his father, and he growls at Father Janovich (Christopher Carley), a baby-faced Priest who refuses to go away because he promised a dying wife he’d get Walt to agree to take confession.
At 78 (Eastwood plays his real age), Walt can live with this. He may not have made peace with his demons, but he is used to them and keeps life’s pleasures simple. Retired with a big old yellow dog for company, all Walt wants from life is his morning coffee, afternoon Pabst Blue Ribbon, a pack of filterless smokes and a quiet porch to enjoy them on.
Walt’s neighborhood, at least the one outside the time capsule Walt calls home, is changing. The area’s poorer, the street gangs cruise by and Hmong immigrants and refugees — or as Walt casually refers to them: gooks, fish heads, chinks – are moving in, including a large extended family right next door — so many that Walt wonders how all the “zipperheads” fit. The only relationship Walt wants with his new neighbors is the one where he growls epithet’s under his breath and they in turn cuss him out in their native tongue. “She hates me,” Walt says to himself with genuine dismay as the old grandmother lashes out in more of a fury than usual.
It’s a merciless Asian gang that changes Walt’s comfortable neighbor-dynmic. For a gang initiation, Thao — the quiet teenage boy who lives next door — attempts to steal Walt’s prized possession: a cherry, 1972 Gran Torino. Thao isn’t interested or cut out for ganglife, but he is easily bullied and soon Walt grudgingly becomes both his and his family’s protector, mentor, and friend. But the gang’s not just going to go away and so they’re always there, a presence undermining the harmony – circling, waiting, willing to take this as far as they must to get what they want.
Many have compared Torino to Dirty Harry (1971), but The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) is more like it. Like Josey, Walt is a widower driven to violence, determined to remain alone, but in the end saddled with a ragtag family that humanizes him as he protects them. Better yet, like Josey, Walt likes to spit a little tobacco before letting things get “real f***ing ugly.” Torino’s themes of faith, mentoring, and an everyday man coming to terms with the winter of his years, however, are straight out of Million Dollar Baby (2004), and handled with the same beautiful and touching precision.
Most of the middle of Torino is taken up with Walt getting to know his Hmong neighbors and the taking of Thao under his wing. The pace is leisurely and pure Eastwood, but the script and Eastwood’s performance are so good that this is just as much fun as the tough stuff. Thankfully the film avoids political correctness like a plague. Certainly Walt changes, but not in a moment of false enlightenment after some heavy-handed lecture, but through the normal, human process of getting to know another. Walt’s words never change but the meaning behind them change completely.
Eastwood’s nothing short of marvelous playing this deceptively complicated and deep character. As an actor, he takes real chances with Walt’s growls and assorted tics. The characterization is performed on a knife edge. One degree this way or that and Eastwood’s making a fool of himself. But it never happens. Clint holds the line like a pro and creates a rarity on film anymore: a convincing, human character who’s larger-than-life.
Great films bring everything together in a final moment. When done right, the story, subplots and themes stay true for the climax but still surprise. This is where Torino most shines. After two hours your investment in the characters is complete, and in keeping with both the pulpier aspects of the genre and the story’s bigger ideas, Eastwood the performer and filmmaker brings together a perfect final moment that lingers for days and might even be the summation of a career made up of both genre grit and thoughtful, thematically-driven drama.
The moment is distilled Eastwood — the blend of hero, anti-hero and explorer of the dark human condition just within the grasp of salvation. For those of us who have never known life without the promise of another Clint Eastwood film, Gran Torino makes for a suitably tough and touching farewell.
Somewhere near the middle of the second act there’s a brief shot of Walt on his porch lighting a cigarette. Anyone who’s seen A Fistful of Dollars – the film that started it all and made Eastwood an international superstar in 1964 – will recognize Eastwood’s pose.
45-years just isn’t enough.
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