¡friday!friday!friday!: February 2009

the first thing we notice, of course, is that cocked scowl. it was there when A Fistful Of Dollars first introduced him to the world, and it's very much there on Clint Eastwood's face throughout most of Gran Torino, the film that will allegedly steal his grizzled visage away from the screen for good; he was handsome once (maybe still) and his features have only sharpened as he's aged, but the sharpest of all is that unmistakable expression. Clint Eastwood, it would seem, is perpetually one step away from giving you the ass-whooping you've always deserved.

there's no denying that Gran Torino's Walt Kowalski (Eastwood, who also directs) has found plenty to scowl about. we first meet him at his wife's funeral, glaring at his bored, immodest grandchildren and listening to the empty words of an earnest rookie priest. receiving guests later that afternoon, he grouses about the crowd in his house and speaks testily to his two sons, who seem no more interested in his grief than he does in theirs. as they finally pull away, the retired auto worker quietly condemns his son's Japanese SUV, spits on the ground, and turns his attention to his neighbors, who have spent the afternoon celebrating a birth.

Walt's problem with these people (if he needs a reason) is the same as his problem with most of his Detroit neighborhood, which has been slowly and steadily overtaken by immigrant communities, particularly the southeast Asian Hmong. a Korean War vet, Kowalski looks upon them with undisguised, bluntly racist contempt, and they're prone to returning his gaze with fascination. Kowalski is, after all, as much a relic as his twin prize possessions: the M1 Garand rifle in his basement and the mint-condition 1972 Gran Torino in his garage.

naturally -- or, if you rather, by considerable contrivance -- our crochety, despicable hero is coaxed into a reluctant relationship with the neighboring Lor family. circumstances surrounding Kowalski's reflexive rifle-wielding confrontation with a gang of Hmong hooligans bring the teenage Thao (Bee Vang) into his home through a customary indentured servitude, while Thao's plucky older sister Sue (Ahney Her) seems to sense the old man's loneliness, and brings him into their home in return.

so there we are: Gran Torino is, at least at first, a film about racism and its reconciliation, with no small bit of the boring baggage that sort of film typically entails. screenwriter Nick Schenck goes to great pains to paint Kowalski as a bigot, but falls there and elsewhere into a tendency to tell rather than show; we are spared honest examination of his mindset in favor of abundant, casual epithets, ugly in the wrong way because they find no weight to carry. there is even a flatly superfluous scene between Kowalski, Sue and some black street toughs, existing only to emphasize the "wow he's racist but those guys were validating his prejudices" angle (as well as the "wow its badass when Clint pulls a gun on dudes" angle, which i have much less quarrel with.)

luckily Gran Torino slowly snaps out of its Crash-Lite sermonizing as Kowalski and Thao's relationship develops, and we come to understand what has drawn Eastwood to this story, particularly as an onscreen swan song. Kowalski's cantankerousness, it seems, is rooted just as firmly in masculine identity as racism, and he goes to increasing lengths to encourage the quiet, submissive Thao to pursue manly self-sufficience, especially when the Hmong thugs (led by Thao's cousin Spider) ride in on the third act.

while Thao remains fairly inert (it's evident that the majority of the Hmong actors are non-professionals) this thematic re-evaluation finally gives Clint something to do besides slur and sneer, and it becomes clear that Walt Kowalski has more in common with Dirty Harry Callahan than just the name on the marquee. the racism, resentment, and resistance to change are all outlets for rage, forged in war and tempered for decades by a manly life but newly impotent in the face of a world moving on. Kowalski clings to his own empowered experience as he clings to his Gran Torino; if he is a relic, he is unashamed.

it becomes clear, then, that Gran Torino is not simply the labored cross-cultural melodrama we've figured it for, but a meditation on a career on the screen, now too in decline thanks to age and changing times; Eastwood may be American cinema's most important masculine figure -- that cold scowl is an iconography in and of itself -- and whether or not his performance lives up to the legend (it doesn't, sorry) he's certainly rooted out a thoughtful curtain call in Gran Torino.

it's a good thing, however, that he plans to continue directing films. once the quotation marks are firmly in place around Walt Kowalski, Gran Torino's lazy character study sputters to a stop, dutifully hitting its marks and building to a nearly surprising ending but apparently content to have left its audience behind in fond daydreams of woolen ponchos and .44 magnums. (maybe we're happier that way anyway?) farewell, scowl, and godspeed.

(from the KNOXVILLE VOICE)