Gran Torino

Walt Kawalski (Clint Eastwood) is a war-hardened, bitter old man living in an old Detroit suburb, which is slowly being overrun by a variety of immigrants. The majority of those immigrants are Hmong, an ethnicity that encompasses certain Chinese, Vietnamese, and Laotian peoples. Walt is a veteran of the Korean War, rendering his previous interactions with Asians not exactly positive. Walt’s wife has passed away at the beginning of the film and his children and their families arrive to mourn with him. Walt is extremely disappointed in everything he sees of his family, often grunting in displeasure to himself. Father Janovich, Mrs. Kawalski’s priest, approaches Walt after the proceedings, informing him that she made the Reverend promise to get Walt into Confession. Walt, uninterested in the church, tells him that he knows nothing about life and death, and sends him away.

One of Walt’s Hmong young neighbors, Thao, is being viciously bullied by a racist Asian gang in the neighborhood, and they convince him to join their ranks. His initiation is to steal Walt’s beloved 1972 Ford Gran Torino (the film’s namesake), something Walt doesn’t take to kindly to. He prevents the theft, and sends Thao packing. The gang returns to harass Thao at home, but Walt comes by with his M1 Garand, uttering “Get off my lawn”, and the gang hightails it out of there. Walt is seen as the hero of the neighborhood, and the Hmong people begin showering him with food and foliage, another thing Walt doesn’t appreciate. Soon though, Walt starts to warm up to his neighbors, and begins protecting them from various groups of less than savory people.


I went into this movie very excited. I had the highest expectations for it. Everything I heard from other reviews, from the trailer, from people I knew told me that this movie would be a cut above the rest. And I wasn’t disappointed.

This American drama rocks in all aspects. Clint Eastwood plays the part of the most badass 72 year old action hero in cinema, and Eastwood’s writing and directing are superb.

The tone in the first two acts of the film is largely comedic. There’s just something about watching an old crotchety white man refer to varying ethnic groups by some of the worse names imaginable that’s incredibly funny. And the name calling isn’t reserved for the Asians. Being an Italian, I can inform you that Walt refers to his barber as an “old Italian prick” and a “cheap doo-wop dago.”. His bartender returns in kind with “pollock sonova bitch” in some good friendly ribbing.

The final act, and the foreshadowing that leads to it, is phenomenal. I can’t really tell you everything that was good about the end without giving it up. Suffice it to say that it was powerful, and one of the most meaningful movies I have seen in a while.

Final verdict? See it in the theatre very soon. These kinds of movie don’t impact you the same way on DVD, I’ve noticed. It’s touching, it’s funny, it’s emotional, I even nearly cried at one point. If there was a star rating system here at Hindsight Alloys, and it was out of five stars, I’d do something ridiculous and give it five and a half stars.