Movie #98 – Gran Torino (2008) - 18 min, cert 15.
Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood) is a retired assembly line worker from a car factory. His wife has recently dies and he lives alone, spending most of his time sitting out on his porch, drinking beer and scowling at the neighbours. The neighbours are Hmongs, a mountain people from Laos who acted as America’s allies in Vietnam, but Walt’s racist views see all Asian immigrants as ‘chinks’ and ‘gooks’. When a street gang turns up to try and recruit the studious adolescent next door, they argue and the disagreement spills over onto Walt’s lawn. At this point Walt appears with his shotgun and the gang leaves. From this point on, he is seen as a hero by the Hmong residents, and he starts to realise that he actually has more in common with these people than he does with his own family.
Clint Eastwood is an extraordinary man. He’s in his eighties, having been acting for over fifty years, and directing for over forty. Yet despite his age, he can still look mean as hell, standing on his front lawn, brandishing a shotgun. Mean enough to chase off a street gang and make it believable. How many other octogenarians could do that? I’ve said before that I’m a fan of his work, and this was certainly no let-down. Yes, he’s certainly old, but is he too old? Certainly not!
Score – 8/10. Not his best work maybe, but probably in his top ten.
Next up is Unforgiven in which Clint Eastwood plays a cantankerous, gun-toting old man. Hang on a minute, does this sound familiar to anyone?
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