Gran Torino
This is why I loved Gran Torino: Clint Eastwood.
To be honest, I never thought Clint Eastwood was that great of an actor. I thought he was hokey in Dirty Harry, one of his classic tough guy roles, I've never seen The Good the Bad and the Ugly, he pretty much turned into a parody of himself with his cardboard voiced effort in Unforgiven (though I still really like that movie), and he was good, but ultimately too melodramatic, in his romantic turn in The Bridges of Madison County. The point is, while I thought he was a solid director, I never really realized why he was such a big deal. That time has passed.
From the opening moments of Gran Torino, I had a smile on my face, in stark contrast to the dynamic scowl Eastwood was sporting for the entire first half hour of the film. I couldn't help it, he was just too good at playing this straight-laced hard nose, beautifully disgusted at all the disturbing diversity and lackadaisical egoism around him. A quivering lip has never spoken so much, it's even enough to chase his son and daughter in law out of the house in a fit, after they try and put him in a retirement home. As well, the creativity and diversity of Eastwood's racial and sexist slurs is almost unmatchable, not to mention hilarious. The shtick threatens to wear thin as Eastwood's character, Walt Kowalski, repeatedly tacks epithets onto the ends of his sentences just begging to be offensive, but just as it seemed the joke was becoming over saturated, he won me over with the innovative brilliance of the term "Puss-cake." (And for those of you who feel like condemning the movie for this shameless overabundance of cussing, get off your high horse and just enjoy it a little)
Aside from that, Eastwood still knows how to act like he means business, helped by his natural, almost emphysemic, wheeze. Not only is that scratchy snarl of his a little frightening, but it sounds like everything he says comes out with a painful effort, so if he does dare to speak, it seems that much more important. I have little doubt his stare could kill some of the more sickly animals inhabiting the planet. I was just sitting in the theater, soaking in the glory of his intimidating performance, rife with effective one-liners, shot guns, large tools, nice cars, and everything else that is the essence of manhood. Sporting a finger as a gun has never looked so scary since Tumultuous Truffles. He takes "Don't mess with me" to new levels.
In a tip of the hat to both Eastwood and the screenplay, I also loved how authentically Kowalski's gradual acceptance of his Hmong neighbors felt. I've seen so many culture clash movies it's a little ridiculous they keep making them. Most of feel pretty cliche by this point, providing lame commonalities between the two groups and force feeding the message down our throat til we feel obligated to turn to the guy next to us in the multiplex and say "Hey man, we're really not all that different after all!!!" (Freedomland anyone?). This movie executes it almost seamlessly however, the transition from loathing to friendship almost sneaks by the viewer, making the message all that much more believable as well. And to boot, I thought the climax was perfect, quite a clever bit of writing, like a poorman's Road to Perdition.
There are a lot more reasons to dislike the film, it's chock full of flaws. There are a number of cringe inducing scenes, due to a potent combination of bad acting from the other performers, poor characterization, and patches of bad writing. One scene involving Kowalski's barbershop, is pretty irrelevant and out of place as well, but so funny it doesn't matter. All of these issues combined still don't even come close to ruining this movie, and Eastwood's performance, for me though.
Bottom line: I watch a lot of movies. The vast majority of them don't live up to my expectations, and every so often I become quite disenchanted with the medium as a whole. I'm just waiting for some gem of a film to surprise me and remind me why I loved movies, and the more failures I endure, the worse it gets. Lately I've been kind of getting into one of those funks. The last real movie I can remember that sparked me like that was (somewhat depressingly) Pineapples Express. Benjamin Button almost did it for me, providing me with little flashes of inspiration that made me feel like it was something special, but in the end not special enough. Then, tonight, Gran Torino become such a movie. I was truthfully giddy throughout the film. I know it's far from perfect, but if it can rekindle the magic of movies for me once again, it certainly gets a pass in my book.
To be honest, I never thought Clint Eastwood was that great of an actor. I thought he was hokey in Dirty Harry, one of his classic tough guy roles, I've never seen The Good the Bad and the Ugly, he pretty much turned into a parody of himself with his cardboard voiced effort in Unforgiven (though I still really like that movie), and he was good, but ultimately too melodramatic, in his romantic turn in The Bridges of Madison County. The point is, while I thought he was a solid director, I never really realized why he was such a big deal. That time has passed.
From the opening moments of Gran Torino, I had a smile on my face, in stark contrast to the dynamic scowl Eastwood was sporting for the entire first half hour of the film. I couldn't help it, he was just too good at playing this straight-laced hard nose, beautifully disgusted at all the disturbing diversity and lackadaisical egoism around him. A quivering lip has never spoken so much, it's even enough to chase his son and daughter in law out of the house in a fit, after they try and put him in a retirement home. As well, the creativity and diversity of Eastwood's racial and sexist slurs is almost unmatchable, not to mention hilarious. The shtick threatens to wear thin as Eastwood's character, Walt Kowalski, repeatedly tacks epithets onto the ends of his sentences just begging to be offensive, but just as it seemed the joke was becoming over saturated, he won me over with the innovative brilliance of the term "Puss-cake." (And for those of you who feel like condemning the movie for this shameless overabundance of cussing, get off your high horse and just enjoy it a little)
Aside from that, Eastwood still knows how to act like he means business, helped by his natural, almost emphysemic, wheeze. Not only is that scratchy snarl of his a little frightening, but it sounds like everything he says comes out with a painful effort, so if he does dare to speak, it seems that much more important. I have little doubt his stare could kill some of the more sickly animals inhabiting the planet. I was just sitting in the theater, soaking in the glory of his intimidating performance, rife with effective one-liners, shot guns, large tools, nice cars, and everything else that is the essence of manhood. Sporting a finger as a gun has never looked so scary since Tumultuous Truffles. He takes "Don't mess with me" to new levels.
In a tip of the hat to both Eastwood and the screenplay, I also loved how authentically Kowalski's gradual acceptance of his Hmong neighbors felt. I've seen so many culture clash movies it's a little ridiculous they keep making them. Most of feel pretty cliche by this point, providing lame commonalities between the two groups and force feeding the message down our throat til we feel obligated to turn to the guy next to us in the multiplex and say "Hey man, we're really not all that different after all!!!" (Freedomland anyone?). This movie executes it almost seamlessly however, the transition from loathing to friendship almost sneaks by the viewer, making the message all that much more believable as well. And to boot, I thought the climax was perfect, quite a clever bit of writing, like a poorman's Road to Perdition.
There are a lot more reasons to dislike the film, it's chock full of flaws. There are a number of cringe inducing scenes, due to a potent combination of bad acting from the other performers, poor characterization, and patches of bad writing. One scene involving Kowalski's barbershop, is pretty irrelevant and out of place as well, but so funny it doesn't matter. All of these issues combined still don't even come close to ruining this movie, and Eastwood's performance, for me though.
Bottom line: I watch a lot of movies. The vast majority of them don't live up to my expectations, and every so often I become quite disenchanted with the medium as a whole. I'm just waiting for some gem of a film to surprise me and remind me why I loved movies, and the more failures I endure, the worse it gets. Lately I've been kind of getting into one of those funks. The last real movie I can remember that sparked me like that was (somewhat depressingly) Pineapples Express. Benjamin Button almost did it for me, providing me with little flashes of inspiration that made me feel like it was something special, but in the end not special enough. Then, tonight, Gran Torino become such a movie. I was truthfully giddy throughout the film. I know it's far from perfect, but if it can rekindle the magic of movies for me once again, it certainly gets a pass in my book.
posted by DJDangerRanger at 1:06 AM
1 Comments:
First off I had no idea this was still in existence and second of all we spent a good twenty minutes at our morning meeting talking about all of the racial slurs in this meeting. It was hilarious because then everyone started debating who was the ultimate source of racial slurs in the office (I think it was probably the Italian from innercity Philly but that's just my guess).
Post a Comment
<< Home