Gran Torino (2008)

Guess Who Gets The Car At The End?

Clint Eastwood ceases to surprise me. After such a long and successful acting career (53 years?) he has been so predictably average as a director that I have always felt ashamed on his behalf after watching his films. The great praise he has been receiving nonetheless only increases the pain.

But I will save my further complaints and all my reasoning behind them for another article I am planning for Eastwood. Instead, I will focus on his latest atrocity which is a new low, even for himself.


Gran Torino is one of those badass Eastwood films with a modern twist and only the illusions of complexity, where he plays a bitter old man, who despises everything in his life, with such superficiality that it upset me greatly to watch as a big fan of Clint Eastwood the actor. His racist mean bastard is already cliche and one-dimensional on the screenplay, but Eastwood takes it and reduces it into a mere bunch of snarls, spits and frequent public displays of his teeth. If he was told to play a cheap dog who is trying to make up for its cowardice by grumbling too much, I would say his acting was quite appropriate.

The film opens in one of the rare occasions that such a man would wear wear an expensive suit - his beloved wife's funeral. The first thing we see are his grandchildren making fun of the occasion and his sons murmuring about what kind of a nuisance he is in many ways (a little too much even for deliberate emotional manipulation, don't you think?). Kubrick was once quoted as saying: "scenes of people talking about themselves are often very dull". I will take it one step further and say that other characters talking about a character for descriptive purposes are almost as dull and definitely more annoying. It's the cheapest and easiest way to portray a character on screen which also shameless fakes a natural feel.

But speaking of both the opening scene and the wide selection of cardboard characters that film has to offer us, his asshole sons should not be left unmentioned; gossiping about him in his wife's (and their mother's) funeral, calling him only when they need something, buying him tools for old people and telephones with huge numbers on them as if it would expedite his old age and death, and so on and so forth. Does any sort of family dysfunction get more cartoonish than this? Was anybody honestly not expecting them to try sending him to one of those 'resorts' so that they could land on his property? There is more creativity in the porn industry in terms of characters and plot (well, in the French ones anyway). Besides, you get to see some boobs as a bonus for all your time.

He frequently orates about what he knows and others don't; looks down on people in the most expected and tired way, asking them what they know about life or death and he brags about what they used to do in Korea to settle things up whenever desperate measures were called for. It doesn't work as a glorification, it doesn't work as a characterization, so it's utterly useless. The relationship between him and the priest could be quite interesting if it also wasn't told in the most boring way known to man. Compare these characters to Valentine and the judge in Kieslowski's Red for example, and you will see how everything is properly done in masterful hands; because it's essentially the same relationship between the two although the characters are not necessarily the same. Somebody should inform Clint Eastwood of the power of 'showing' over 'telling'; ('showing' in this case not to be taken literally). It is always better to allow the audience to make the deductions themselves, even the simplest ones, instead of conveniently laying all the groundwork for them the follow the plot.

Unfortunately, Eastwood's (as well as writer Schenk's) sleeve never runs out of cheap tricks when it comes to dramatical manipulation. Throughout the film, 'Father' Janovich keeps showing up like a sticky piece of mud and when saying this, I am not assuming the position of Walt, who is clearly irritated by his presence at the beginning. No, the young priest simply does not belong to the story. He is not real and he definitely doesn't feel natural. He is just a tool for the film to show off. Janovich keeps playing the same cheesy variations over the theme of life and death and we are expected to be moved and/or impressed by his parasitic persistence and his so-called 'wisdom' that he presumably possesses despite his young age. After all, we are not old mean bastards like Walter Kowalski, and if he is beginning to be impressed, so should we.

Luckily, the priest barely appears in the second half of the film; someone with some brains must've talked some sense into screenwriter Schenk when proofreading the first half. But Janovich or Kowalski are not the only characters that leave a mark on one another, because Gran Torino is a film where everyone undergoes some sort of quick and implausible change. Even the kid eventually finds the courage in himself to act cocky around his intimidating role model; although the young actor cannot find the talent in himself to act such moments properly. As suddenly and unconvincingly as that, Walt turns into Thao's grandpa, scolding him for being a softball and giving him precious advices on the arts of love. And then there's the young girl, the brave soul that Walt likes and empathizes with; which gives her the right to subliminally lecture him about tolerance, positivity and certain disadvantages of xenophobia (not having the chance to taste delicious asian food being one of them). The Hollywood trailer voice man should enter at this point, as profoundly as he tends to do: "An impossible friendship... that would change them both... forever...".

Did you feel it touching somewhere deep within you as well? Were you as moved as I was?

In the past, there has been some terrible films with Eastwood's name attached to them, and even more average ones, but this is definitely and ultimately the rock-bottom. On one hand, I am aware that I am being too harsh on him, maybe a little bit too rude as well (after all, biggest blame does not belong to him but his screenwriter) but on the other hand I am simply frustrated at no matter how dramatically this man fails, the critics and Academy members are always there to praise him to the sky (I am confident that he will be overrepresented in the Oscars this year; if not, I will be pleasantly surprised). Granted, he is a legendary figure in filmmaking, but all the buzz that had been going on for the past couple years is simply too much.


Sometimes, when I feel really hopeless and lost, I like to think that he is in fact smarter than all of us; and that he at one point discovered everybody would be hailing any of his films under any given circumstances. I imagine him smirking, when reading all those favorable reviews on newspapers and magazines; planning his next step in his master plan to confront everyone with their blind admiration to himself and his latest works.

Sadly though, I know this is not the case.

1/10

Note: This article is a part of the 2008 awards season review series which will be the primary feature of The Long Take until the Oscar Night. The information below will be updated as listed awards are handed out and more nominations are announced.

Nominated For:

• Best Actor (Clint Eastwood) - Chicago Film Critics Association Awards

• Best Original Song in a Motion Picture (for the song 'Gran Torino) - Golden Globes

• Excellence in Production Design, Contemporary Films (James J. Murakami) - Art Directors Guild
  

Won:

• Best Actor (Clint Eastwood) - National Board of Reiew, USA
  
• Best Original Screenplay (Nick Schenk) - National Board of Review, USA

• Ten Best Movies of the Year - American Film Institute Awards