Gran Torino

Viewed at the local multiplex full theatre

This is one of the R rated movies. It was great.

Clint Eastwood directs and stars. He has gone way past the days of being Rowdy Yates in the 1959 television western series Rawhide. Or being Dirty Harry.

He plays a grouchy, recently widowed old fart named Walter Kowalski. Wait, that's only the beginning. He's a foul mouthed, ex-Korean war soldier who is a bigot of the highest order. He sits on his porch, in his old intercity neighborhood where all of his white neighbors are being slowly replaced by individuals of other races. He mutters disparaging remarks about them to his dog as he reaches for another beer from the cooler next to his chair.

His neighbors are Asians and his mutterings are particularly aimed at their existence. Their old patriarch grandmother sits on her porch and glares at him. This continues until he feels obligated to take a forceful stand against a despicable gang that is trying to recruit the young son of the family. I guess if Dirty Harry was a old man, he might be Walt . Walt doesn't actually say "make my day", but that's what he means.

Other encounters ensue and as time progresses, a better side of Walt is seen. This, despite his continued verbal abuse and there is plenty verbal abuse. We, the theatre audience, chuckled in disbelief and some discomfort at the numerous racial slurs that are uttered. I wonder. If I was Asian, Mexican or Italian, would I have been offended?

A young, fresh faced priest from his parish who knew Walt's wife and promised to make sure Walt went to confession, persists in visits to Walt. Walt is very annoyed. However, the dialog between these two is crucial in plot development. As my daughter would say - this was a movie about the "human condition". She avoids "human condition" movies. I tell her she is missing a lot.

The characters are diverse, the acting great. The storyline is predictable to some extent, but with never a dull moment. At the end of the movie, most of us sat quietly for a couple of minutes in a sort of reverent silence. When it comes out on video, we'll rent it.

RATING FOR GRAN TORINO: