No Ordinary Fool

So, this is meant to be goodbye to Clint Eastwood the actor. The loss is all ours, if so.

Yet, sod it all, it does not feel right for a moment. Simply put, there are some actors who just have to die with their boots on. Indeed, his leading role here as aged contrarian Walt Kowalski is most definitely not the performance of an actor picking up a final pay cheque or two in some bit-part senior citizen role. This is a man who still utterly dominates viewing screens fifty years after Rawhide first hit them. In this film, recently bereaved of his beloved wife and alienated from his two middle-aged sons, his character Walt spends much of his day drinking beer, mowing the lawn, polishing his beloved 1972 Ford Gran Torino, and bitching openly and candidly about the increasing size of the Asian community living on his road.

Indeed, the story focuses on his relationship with the neighbouring Lor family, with its two teenage children Thao (Bee Vang) and Sue (Ahney Her). Thao is a small, meek youth who is under pressure from his older cousin to get involved in the local street gang. When a failed initiation test places him at the business end of Walt’s shotgun, Thao is compelled by his mother into carrying out chores for their elderly neighbour in order to restore the family’s honour. Meanwhile, the outspoken and quick-witted Sue proves to be the rare sort of individual who can win Walt’s grudging respect for her spirited responses to his sour and unpleasant remarks about her ethnicity. To Walt’s surprise, he even realises in an important moment of epiphany that he has far more in common with this family of gooks and zipperheads (as he would term them) than he does with his own children.

The story, of course, is complicated by the threat that the local street gang brings to the community. For example, they do not take kindly to Thao’s ongoing reluctance to joining up with them. Inevitably, though, their persistence brings them into direct contact with Walt, a Korean War veteran who keeps a loaded shotgun in the house at all times and who does not seem opposed to using it. Inevitably, such confrontation and the very notion of violent vigilantism means that the film makes for a fascinating contemporary companion piece to the contraversial yet unforgettable Dirty Harry. If anything, the menacing gravel in the voice is even greater here than it ever was in that of San Francisco’s most notorious homicide detective!

On the other hand, Gran Torino holds greater ambitions insofar as it also throws itself headlong into the racial melting pot that the United States has become. Here, old-school immigrants such as the Italians, Irish, and Poles now find themselves rubbing shoulders on a daily basis with whom they consider to be more recent arrivals in the Hispanic, Afro-American, and Asian communities. The irony is evident though in how these old men joke between themselves about each other’s ethnic backgrounds, yet feel united in their concerns at the degree of social change that is occuring in their locale. At the same time, the unexpected journey that Walt finds himself on gets under the skin of the matter insofar as blatant differences in appearance and customs only reveal a fraction of who people really are. Hence, hopefully, the people in the audience, whose sustained laughter rang out at a cheap bigoted gag by Walt to his bar buddies, will pick up on the underlying message of the film.

Yet, in making that last point, do not get me wrong! In context, the film offers up some hilarious moments that generally involve Walt offering some colourful insights into either the Asian community (“…you’re letting Click-Clack, Ding-Dong, and Charlie Chan just walk out with Miss What’s-Her-Face”) and priesthood (“…you’re an overeducated 27-year old virgin who likes to hold the hands of superstitious old ladies and promise them everlasting life”). However, it is always tempered by Walt having to accept as good as he gives, not least when he is outspat by the equally unimpressed Granny Lor.

Gran Torino is not flawless, with its ultimately sentimental plot, rather obvious editing mistakes, and the weak scripting of the street gang when contrasted with the recent ground-breaking writing of the superb television series The Wire. At the same time, it is impossible to think of another actor right now who can convey more with one slit-eyed, hollow-cheeked growl than Eastwood can. If this does prove to be his swansong (and Walt’s final scene makes it hard not to think of the ending to Sam Peckinpah’s The Ballad of Cable Hogue), it may also be the right role for this great man to bow out on, seeing as it leaves his fans howling for more.

At the same time, it does leave his fans howling for more, so we can only hope that there is at least one more outing left in this most remarkable of actors.