Gran Torino

Writen, directed, starring, focusing on and showcasing Clint Eastwood.

Gran Torino (it's his CAR!) is a movie that doesn't fall in the area of movies i typically see. It's not great and it's not horrible. It is very painfully average - the fact that this warrants a 75% freshness rating on rottentomatoes.com (as of this writing) is cause for alarm. Are our movies really getting that bad?

Firstly, nothing will make you appreciate good acting like terrible acting. While normally i "don't care about" actors, Clint Eastwood is the only one in the movie who does anything that can be mistaken for acting. Even then, his role was largely one of "reticent anger" similar to, oh, i don't know, everything else he's ever done.

The characters start off (yes, all of them) relatively unlikeable in a wide array of ways. In the intro, Clint Eastwood's wife has just died and his family's in mourning. Due to the funeral, Eastwood is forced to spend time with his whiny, self-centred and arrogant grandchildren and unsympathetic and estranged children. But, considering Clint himself is portrayed as an evil, racist, hate-filled cunt, you kinda feel like it's par for the course.

The first half of the movie is punishingly sluggish as it "builds the setting". You're introduced to Eastwood's "gook neighbours" as he'd call them (not me) and shown that they, too, are largely unlikable for a variety of reasons. As this later turns out not to be an important part of the story, it makes you wonder why it was brought up to begin with. However, considering every character is portrayed as negatively as possible, it's probably not "that" reason.

By this point in the movie, since you probably haven't identified with any of the hateful characters, you might think "how can this turn out good?". Well, cue the writer's favourite device: the heel-face turn. For those of you not fluent in the lingo, it's when an unlikable character turns into a likable one... often done (as is the case in Gran Torino) as clumsily as possible (for emphasis?). Systematically, each and every main character will go from outwardly hostile toward each other to heartwarming love-fest in roughly 20 minutes of real time. Yes, it's that jarring. To make matters worse, the 20 minutes of real time is roughly equivalent to a couple weeks in movie time. Given that their hostility was directed toward each other for most of the movie (and implied to be long before that) it's jarring even in context.

I'd like to continue on here and tear apart the plot, but the sad fact of the matter is... i can't. The ending is actually good (I mean, apart from all the terrible acting): It's emotional, gripping and entertaining all in one. The characters who don't get their heel-face turn are slapped instead and the movie ends on a story-writing high note. Clint Eastwood sings as the credits role.

...

Let me repeat that for those of you who missed it: Clint Eastwood... SINGS. And it's every bit as awful as you can imagine it to be - probably worse if movies have killed your imagination (yes, yes,. Normally here i'd make a joke about how Eastwood's singing will somehow get him nominated for a Golden Globe, but it seems reality has beaten me to the punch. While the movie didn't get any nominations in "prestigious" categories (and it shouldn't!) it DID receive one for "Best Original Song": the song sung by Eastwood himself.

As far as i see it, this is an average movie. A good movie to walk in on halfway through: 2 and a half stars (out of 5).