I would define America as a country that is so sensitive to racial insensitivity that, at its core, it's obviously insensitive.  The feel good movies concerning race Hollywood manages to produce are ludicrous, from Amistad to Crash.  Crash, let it be known, is not only one of the worst movies to win a Best Picture Oscar, it is one of the worst movies period.  So along comes Clint Eastwood, with his take on things in Gran Torino, a movie he directs, produces, and stars.  As we all enjoy the fruits of other cultures with films such as Slumdog Millionaire, an old question of "What is American culture?" reemerges, especially among inexcusable affected garbage like Crash.  Well, I am happy to say, Eastwood has answered resoundingly.  Gran Torino is an American movie, and I can respect that.

Is Gran Torino potentially offensive?  Absolutely.  The most controversial idea for me is that redemption is something you can actively pursue by doing no less than kicking butt.  The ending tells a different story, but for most of the movie, Eastwood is trying to relive his Dirty Harry days.  And a familiar theme is obvious: the white man soils his soul by destroying the helpless colored man, and redeems himself by finding and helping the helpless colored man.  It all feels very ethnocentric to me and any lesser actor would have probably been offensive and annoying.  But Eastwood is offensive and enjoyable as cinema's most elderly action hero.

I use "most elderly" instead of "oldest" because I give Eastwood reverence for being completely irreverent in the face of political correctness (there is no convention in America more meaningless than political correctness - it is superficiality to the point of nausea).  Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, an embittered Korean War veteran who just loses his beloved wife and now faces life alone in a Detroit-based community dominated by minorities and with a distant family that disrespects him.  Out of loneliness, Kowalski goes on quite an extraordinary character arc, but he keeps all his old-school vocabulary filled with words like "chink, g*ok, and slope."  One point Gran Torino hammers home is that a man's internal motivations are what gives him merit, not the diction he chooses to use or the awards he keeps in his basement.

The other point of Gran Torino is to give Eastwood's take on salvation and manliness.  Many of Eastwood's movies are dedicated to defining what constitutes manliness.  As Eastwood ages, the idea has evolved from the laconic gunslinger to the veteran who won't shut up.  At the twilight of life, Kowalski is a ghost, misunderstood and mocked by his own family, who can only materialize through racist and sexist paroxysms.  And yet, Kowalski is simultaneously portrayed as the consummate male who is in control of his salvation.  A man, according to Eastwood, never yields, never follows, and never apologizes.  He figures out the "manly" thing to do at every moment and then does it.  The true beauty in Gran Torino is in how different it feels when an obsolete, dying man tries to follow "Eastwood's rules to being a man" instead of a cowboy in his prime.

In his seventies, Kowalski makes Gran Torino part-comedy.  Not lost in the controversy of the film is its genuine entertainment value.  When Eastwood speaks, he is as menacing as he is wrinkly and this incongruency makes Gran Torino potentially funny at almost any given moment.  But better than the profanity-filled dialogue is Eastwood's facial expressions.  The absolute contempt at youth is captured so brilliantly in Gran Torino by Eastwood's old, disgusted face punctuated by a coarse array of growls and snarls.

During the ending scenes of Gran Torino, Kowalski is allowed a Christ image, which is just the type of controversy-within-the-safety-net-of-expectation that plagues Hollywood.  The other fault of the movie is the use of authentic Hmong actors to portray the neighbors Kowalski becomes increasingly fond of.  They may be the real-deal Hmong, but they can't act.  Aside from these complaints, Gran Torino is a delightfully unapologetic and entertaining film filled with symbology, passion, and purpose.  With all the foreign films getting recognition recently, outshining a sorry plethora of pointless movies from Hollywood, Gran Torino holds its own as a proud American film.  But what else would you expect from Clint Eastwood?

Recommended:
Yes

Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age