Make My Day or Get Off My Lawn

I saw the movie "Gran Torino" last weekend and the more I think about the more I liked it. Clint Eastwood plays a racist grumpy old man who actually does say, "Get off my lawn." Trust me it's quite intimidating the way he says it. It's hard not to be reminded of his "make my day" line from the Dirty Harry movies. In fact, it's impossible not be reminded of Dirty Harry while watching the whole movie and that's what makes this movie work so well.

Eastwood plays Walter, a recently widowed Korean War veteran and retired autoworker who is not happy being the last white man in dying town that is Detroit. (Remember, this is the town where you can buy a house for $7500 big ones.) At the start of the movie, he has completely shut himself off from the rest of humanity. All he does is sit on his porch all day and drink beer and talk to his dog. That all changes when a fatherless Hmong family moves in next door. Through the kind of events that can only happen in a screenplay, he becomes their hero by saving them from a Hmong gang. He also helps the boy become a man by teaching him how to do things like ask girls out and fix things with tools. Finally, he sacrifices himself to save them and in his will he leaves the son his prized Ford Gran Torino. I know this all sounds very cliched and it would be in the hands of a lesser filmmaker.

What makes this movie work is Clint Eastwood's acting and the mythology of film he brings with him to every role. This movie only works as a conclusion/apology to the Dirty Harry series. In those movies Harry Callahan uses violence to bring justice to the world and that's where this movie makes you think it's going. Walter retaliates with violence once which only leads to more violence when the gang retaliates in a horrific fashion. That's when it appears that Walter is going to go kick some ass Dirty Harry style but then he doesn't, making us question all our assumptions about redemptive violence. The subtlety of the whole thing makes it work. There is no big scene where anybody breaks down and cries. There is no hugging either because men don't hug. He starts out a gruff old man and ends up a humanized gruff old man.

Anyway, this movie is definitely worth seeing; especially, in a culture like ours where violence and violent imagery plays such a large role.