Gran Torino Review

by Wick (wick AT wikpik DOT com)
January 16th, 2009

Perfect - 5 on a scale of 5 beams

Masterpiece. As terrific a Clint Eastwood movie as has ever been, Gran Torino delivers everything a perfect movie should: its funny as hell, deeply engaging, warmly affecting, sad yet uplifting. Movies come fancier, bigger, louder, pricier, and with higher reality factors, but they don't come any better than this.

The movie wears its ambitions on its sleeve by naming Clint's character "Walt Kowalski," the last name shared with A Streetcar Named Desire's Stanley, legendarily personified by the young Marlon Brando. So here in Gran Torino we have a rookie screenwriter who names his own emotionally inchoate brute "Kowalski," then gets a Brando-sized legend to play the part. Ballsy, and it worked.

Gran Torino does to modern revenge dramas what Unforgiven did to Westerns: use their hoary old conventions to subvert the genre. This movie speaks to changes in America (cities degrade, new immigrant groups struggle to establish themselves), changes in generations (an emotionally remote grandfather begets emotionally besotted offspring), and to the healing power of human connection.

As with Unforgiven, Clint plays an aged warrior troubled by the killing he did as a young man. Here that setup leads him to make peace with his racial demons, his paternal demons, and his automotive obsession. Its a hat trick.

Director Eastwood brilliantly juxtaposes two confession scenes late in the movie. In the first, we see Clint Kowalski through the confessional screen separating him from his priest, who soon realizes the confession is incomplete. Moments later, we see Kowalski through the screen door separating him from his teenage charge, to whom he delivers his most sacred confession. Wonderful film making, this.
Source: http://www.wikpik.com/movie_reviews/1589-gran-torino

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