GRAND TORINO: EASTWOOD GOES INDIE
February 9th 2009 13:05
Clint Eastwood gives perhaps his last screen performance in Gran Torino
At 78, time is running out for Clint Eastwood to drop his dust coat, bare the knuckles and load his Winchester, but in Gran Torino the grizzled performer gives the audience perhaps one last bite of the cherry when it comes to zinging profanity and stark, masculine aggression. Conversely, Gran Torino also illustrates that Eastwood the director doesn’t seem to be getting tired of producing films concerning the racial prejudice that exists in American society.
Gran Torino is the story of Walt Kowalski (Eastwood), an ageing Korean War veteran who is still haunted by the horrors he witnessed on the battlefield. At the start of the film the audience is introduced to Walt at the funeral of his recently deceased wife. Instead of grieving, however, Walt is snarling with angry despair at the flimsy values of his grown sons and their young families. Indeed, the two objects that now matter to him most seem to be his modest suburban Detroit home and the 1972 Gran Torino parked in the garage, on which Walt installed the steering wheel himself during happier days working in a Ford assembly plant.
Other than an immaculately kept house and car, Walt is also in possession of a startling alarm regarding the changes taking place in his neighbourhood, a trait that is born out in racially laced diatribes concerning his Hmong neighbours. Indeed, the whole neighbourhood has become a predominantly Hmong community, and some of them match Walt’s lack of understanding when it comes to issues of race.
When the Hmong teenager from next door, Thao (Bee Vang) attempts to steal Walt’s Gran Torino as part of a gang initiation rite, the old man manages to frighten the thief away with the business end of his service rifle. Thao turns out to hardly be the gangbanging type, and when the thugs return and attempt to force the teen to join their group, a confrontation spills over into Walt’s yard, prompting the disagreeable vet to come charging down his front streps, gun in hand and ready for action. The gang splits and, consequently, Thao’s family begin showering Walt with gifts as a means of thanking him for keeping the boy from falling in with the wrong crowd.
So begins a new chapter in Walt’s life, where his prejudices are slowly bled away by the realisation that the Hmong people may not be so different to him after all. Unfortunately, Walt has also started a fresh conflict after his scuffle with the gangbangers, one that may help tie him closer together with his next-door neighbours but also threatens to overwhelm both himself and Thao.
The most immediately striking element of Gran Torino is its small scale. Working from a screenplay by newcomer Nick Schenck, Eastwood the director shot the film in just five weeks, creating a tight motion picture that is almost independent in its efficiency. There’s a great sense of scale in Gran Torino, with Eastwood and his collaborators seemingly understanding that a larger treatment would have consumed the film, swamping the straightforward source material. Schenck’s uncomplicated and direct script is a major positive for Gran Torino, providing clear, natural character arcs for all of the main players to work with. There isn’t a massive amount of plot in here, but Schenck seems to understand that plot is simply what happens to his characters.
Thao (Bee Vang) receives lessons ion manhood from Barber Martin (John Carroll Lynch) and Walt (Cint Eastwood)
As for the players themselves, proceedings are understandably dominated by Eastwood the actor. As Walt , Eastwood is in crackling form. He seems to have grown an extra foot in his old age and it’s impossible to take your eyes off him as he spews racial epithets, beats senseless a posturing gang member 60 years his junior, or simply succumbs to the gentle charm of Thao’s dauntless and gregarious sister, Sue (Ahney Her). It’s tempting to think of Walt as Harry Callahan’s dad, but the character of Eastwood’s past he most resembles is that of misanthrope Tom Highway from Heartbreak Ridge (1986). Anybody who’s seen that film knows it possesses some of the most imaginative profanity ever heard in a motion picture – indeed, it seems that Eastwood has been quietly writing down the best zingers he can think of for the past 22 years – but it also shares with Gran Torino a tendency to balance the angry masculinity of its main character with a quietly elegiac tone.
Bee Vang is solid if sometimes a little awkward as Thao, while Ahney Her brings a clever spontaneity to the spiky Sue. Vang and Her do have a touch of the amateur about their performances and perhaps some scenes would have been given a few more takes if Eastwood had a bit more time up his sleeve, but overall they work very well in the context of Gran Torino’s small scale. In a smaller but pivotal role, Christopher Carley is great as a callow priest determined to get Walt to attend confession.
Technically, things are straightforward and understated, with crisp cinematography, efficient editing and a score that doesn’t intrude on the onscreen happenings. Once again it’s all of a piece; there’s no flashiness to barge in on the direct story and its honest characters.
You have to hand it to Clint Eastwood with Gran Torino where he illustrates once again that he is just as comfortable knocking about on small films as he is handling the bigger productions. In truth, it's these smaller, more intimate motion pictures that tend to impress the most when looking back over his intimidating body of work and Gran Torino takes this to a whole other level. It's such a beautifully simple motion picture that peddles its engaging story, subtexts and themes in an uncomplicated and therefore highly effective manner. It's classic storytelling from one of the great directors of our time.
Check out the trailer for Gran Torino below:
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