Clint Eastwood is back for allegedly his final acting showdown, but he couldn't slip away from the silver screen without making one last group of deserving punks realise how unlucky they are. In his latest outing, which he also directs, he plays Walt Kowalski, a grizzled, gun-toting Korean war vet who recently lost his beloved wife and has nothing better to do with his time than sit on his porch and glower at the ethnic minorities 'invading' his home turf. When his sheepish young Hmong neighbour Tao (Bee Vang) is coerced by local thugs into trying to steal his prized 1972 Gran Torino as an initiation to their gang, Walt and his rifle soon scare him away. However, a few days later the gang return for Tao, a fight ensues and yet again the appearance of Walt's gun and a growled 'Get. Off. My. Lawn' see the yobs heading for the hills.

Regarded as a hero by the Hmong community and befriended by Tao's sassy sister Sue (Ahney Her), Walt slowly begins to see how much he has in common with his neighbours. When Sue persuades him to let Tao do odd jobs for him, in penance for the botched theft, he initially damns the kid as a 'puss' but soon takes a paternal shine to the boy, nicknaming him Toad and instructing him in the clichés of manliness, such as wooing ladies and hard labour.

Eastwood's Walt is an amalgamation of all his greatest roles with a splash of Victor Meldrew thrown in for good measure, and, despite his once chiselled frame being gaunt and hunched, the old dog is still tough. It's a credit to his abilities that he can cram so much toxic xenophobia into a film and pass it off as a forgivable generational quirk; the Hmongs seem oblivious to Walt's racial slurs, correctly seeing them as the surly grumblings of a cantankerous old grouch losing his grip on a constantly changing world. The neighbourhood in which the film is set is meant to be Detroit with it's white picket fences, but the dry, washed-out colours of the area are akin to the suburbs of many big towns that have been in decline for decades and are seldom featured in American cinema.

A central theme is Walt's quest for something to believe in; he has a hostility towards Catholicism, having seen too much death to believe in sanctity during the Korean war, and this is expressed in his blatant disregard for the oily clergyman, who he describes as 'an over-educated 27-year old virgin who likes to hold hands with superstitious old ladies and promise them eternity'. His fortune reading by the Hmong shaman, his derision of the horoscopes and his final confession help lay his demons to rest whilst rediscovering forgotten values, without the need for easy violence.

A lifetime of movies runs through this character, but the audience is perpetually aware that they are watching a great performance and never truly believe that Walt is a 3-dimensional, fully realised personality. We'll have to wait until next year to find out whether Gran Torino is good enough to earn Eastwood the Oscar his acting career so rightly deserves.

Words > Anna Dobbie  

Gran Torino is showing at Cinema City Norwich 3-7 April and Hollywood Cinema Ipswich 17-23 April