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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 129
Released: June 9, 2009 |
| Our Price: $7.02 |
| Used Price: $4.35 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
A disgruntled Korean War vet, Walt Kowalski (Eastwood), sets out to reform his neighbor, a young Hmong teenager, who tried to steal Kowalski's prized possession: his 1972 Gran Torino.
Description of Gran Torino (Widescreen Edition):
Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino, an unassuming picture shot during a post-production lull on his elaborate period piece Changeling, was quietly rolled out at Christmastime 2008, whereupon it proceeded to blow away all the Oscar-bait behemoths at the box office and win its 78-year-old star the best reviews of his acting career. Both film and performance are consummately sly--coming on with deceptive simplicity, only to evolve into something complex, powerful, and surprisingly tender. Just as Unforgiven was a tragic reflection on Eastwood's legacy in the Western genre, Gran Torino caps and eloquently critiques the urban heritage of Dirty Harry and his violent brethren. And on top of that, the movie becomes a savvy meditation on America in a particular historical moment, racially, economically, spiritually. Call it a "state of the union" message. But call it that with a wry grin.
The latest Dirty Harry is actually a grumpy Walt: Walt Kowalski (Eastwood playing his own age), widower, Korean War veteran, retired auto worker, and the last white resident of his Detroit side street. It's hard to say who irks him more--his blood kin (a pretty lame bunch) or the Hmong families who are his new neighbors. Kowalski's a racist, because it has never occurred to him he shouldn't be. Besides, that's the flipside of the mutual ethnic baiting that serves as coin of affection for him and his working-class buddies. Circumstances--and two young people next door, the feisty Sue (Ahney Her) and her conflicted brother Thao (Bee Vang)--contrive to involve Walt with a new community, and anoint him as its hero after he turns his big guns on some ruffians. The trajectory of this may surprise you--several times over. Eastwood opted to film in economically blighted Detroit--a shrewd decision, but it's his mapping of Walt's world in that classical style of his that really counts. Every incidental corner of lawn, porch, and basement comes to matter--and by all means the workshop/garage that houses the mint-condition Gran Torino which Walt helped build in a more prosperous era. This is a remarkable movie. --Richard T. Jameson
Gran Torino (Widescreen Edition) Reviews:
Funny, Powerful & Its a Work of Art. 
2009-11-09 - Gran Torino straight up shows how pathetic and ignorant gangs really are. Its not about the car in this movie, but the special features on this DVD about cars just ruins the whole message in Gran Torino. Although Clint Eastwood was good in the special features, its just the other actor's interviews in Special Features that made it seem like they were only interested in the car, just like how Walter's family in the movie were kinda acting. Thats the only problem I had with this. Besides the dumbed down special features, I thought Gran Torino was one of Clint Eastwood's best movies.
Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood) is now an old retired Polish American Ford factory worker and Korean War veteran. He lives in Highland Park, Michigan neighborhood with his dog, Daisy. He does not get very long with the neighborhood very well and thinks the whole town is overrated and calls them a bunch of names throughout the film, who can blame him. I would too if I was living in that type of neighborhood. Because it pisses you off. Walter definitely says some things in this movie about some people's behavior that is actually true in the real world. For example, some families really do get greedy and only care about the materials the dead ones left over for them. Thats one true example. The other example are the gangs roaming around the neighborhood that can piss someone off like Walt Kowalski. Some say that this movie was racist. Well not really, there are a few racist jokes that Clint Eastwood made throughout this movie, but they were quite hilarious. Although most of the time I figured Clint Eastwood's new alter ego character, Walter was just being his honest self in Gran Torino. Thats one thing I actually admired so much and that was Walter's brutal honesty in this film.
We go into another character's story, Thao Vang Lor, or Toad (Walt likes to keep calling Thao, Toad). We see him walking on the sidewalk while an asian gang inside their car pokes fun at Thao. Another asian gang inside another car sees what is going on and buzzes off the gang who was poking at Thao. This gang that helped Thao wants him to come join them, but Thao just walks away and goes back to his house with his book that he was reading along the way. There ends up being a big pile of gangs fighting each other and over Thao at night at the door next to Walt Kowalski's house, then Walt orders them to get off his lawn threatening the pile of gangs with a shotgun and saves Thao and his family's lives.
The next morning Thao's family is now giving Walter a bunch of food on his footsteps at the porch outside his house, although Walter gets annoyed with the whole thing and orders them to go back home with there food.
We now witness a new character in this movie. Thao's older sister, Sue Lor. She is the first woman to befriends with Walt Kowalski in this film. Sue is very intelligent and street wise, although makes an mistake by going out on a date with some wuss that leads them into a corner sidewalk with a gang that eventually tries to assult Sue and attacks her date. That is when Walter comes in and saves the day, but tells Sue's date to scram for being a wuss. Then tells the gang to take care.
Later Walter finally forgives Thao for trying to steal his Gran Torino car when Thao apologizes and tells Walt the real story why he was stealing the car. Then is required to work for Walt about a week to make up his apologies. A week after that, Walter finds Thao a job and is a success, but it seems the gang is now pressuring on Thao. Because Thao is taking responsibility for himself and it gives a bad look for the asian gang. This is a sad thing that is still actually going on in this world today.
after the fight with the gang, Thao goes back to Walt's garage and tries to hide what has happened from Walt, but Walt finds out what happened by looking at the burnt scar on Thao's face from a asian member who used a light-up cigerate to stab Thao's face with. Walt gets all pissed about it, then goes back to the same gang member to beat him up and threatens him with a pistol to stay away from Thao because he has nothing to do with the gang.
Apparently the fight does not end, it gets worse. But something heroric happens in this movie and I don't want to give anymore detail after that. Because what Walt Kowalski does is incredible near the end and inspiring.
Gran Torino is an amazing movie. Its one of those art movies you don't see anymore. What I love about this movie is how honest it is about some of the reality thats happening in this world. Its an refreshing movie and original half drama/half comedy film with some good hints about real problems some people really do have in this world today throughout this movie.
highly recommended!
Full 5 stars.
Very enjoyable movie! 
2009-11-05 - I really enjoyed this movie, even though it was difficult at some points to really immerse myself into the story because the acting of Hmong kids was not convincing...I am referring to Sue and Thao....would have been a perfect 5 stars if the acting was good. :-(
Aside from that a very entertaining movie with a lot of expletives and racist comments, but all the same very humorous.
Would recommend to those not offended by off color, racey (and I do mean RACEy) humor.
What did he say?
2009-11-05 - A really, really good movie. But why is there no Closed Caption on this download? Eastwood rarely speaks above a gruff whisper, and the other actors (intentionally) have unfamiliar accents. I followed a lot of scenes by continually rewinding.
Excellent condition and very fast delivery
2009-11-03 - Great Movie, I used it in one of my Human Services classes at college to discuss the issue of diversity. It was very well produced, great acting.
Reconsidering the "intentional fallacy"
2009-11-01 - I picked up this film at the recommendation of my son, who no doubt was attracted to it solely by the title. Equally certain is that he, like most viewers, was moved by more than the car. The emphasis is on tolerance, redemption and community, and Eastwood, as is his custom, finds it in an unlikely place--or rather, among an unfamiliar people--the much misunderstood, maligned, and even demonized Hmong people. Clint's character is that of a crusty old Korean war veteran who interprets the world around him according to the bible of Archie Bunker, stereotyping people at every opportunity, cracking politically-incorrect jokes, and talking in a profane and scatological argot ironically not unlike that of the young minority gang-bangers he views as a nemesis. The primary "action" is not the predictable violence, beating and shooting stemming from the vigilante justice that is a trademark of Eastwood films but the conversion of Clint from flint to "father"--not of his distant, materialistic biological children but of a Hmong boy who suffers from low self-esteem while seeking significance and stability among even his own people. Eastwood's character and the Hmong boy (originally an unwelcome neighbor who lives next door to the recently widowed Eastwood who, with the exception of his old dog Daisy, experiences a chosen isolation not all that different from the boy's). Eventually, Eastwood becomes a virtual family member among the Hmongs and gets the son he never had (though at the price of his life), and the Hmong boy in turn gets an affirming father along with the latter's coveted '72 Gran Torino and, through his newly acquired self-confidence, the Hmong girl he had been too shy to look at, much less go after.
These are commendable sentiments, and even without the twist of the Hmong neighbors, Eastwood's skills both as a director and actor assure a result that rises above the plot of what is basically a formulaic film, with a number of developments most likely conveyed to a good share of the audience well before they occur. What's somewhat regrettable is the appearance of the film at a time when the nation is so splintered (bifurcated, may be the word) into conservatives vs. liberals, pro-Obama vs. anti-Obama voters (never forget that an overwhelming majority of white males voted McCain-Palin), the birthers/deathers vs. the progressives who want change regardless of the price tag, and finally (and most importantly) the reductive political platform of the extreme right-wingnuts who can come up with nothing better than: no taxes and free access to fire-arms. It's not merely appalling, but unbelievable, to read polls suggesting that half of the nation has regressed to such bestial "basic needs": Give me my guns, and don't tax me! Even more disturbing is reading of political rallies to which people are drawn while packing firearms! (Undeniably, that's one solution to the current problems with the economy and its failure to provide sufficient jobs: kill enough people, and eventually demand will come into closer alignment with supply.)
In literature courses, teachers often try to discourage students from falling victim to the "intentional fallacy" ("Shakespeare wrote to entertain theater-goers and REALLY meant to say to be or not to be a ticket buyer is the question"; or "You're making too big a deal out of the poem. Maybe all Frost meant to say was that he went on a walk, came to a fork, and took the less-traveled one to be different."). But once a literary piece (or film) is born, it takes on a life of its own. Attempts to read the author's mind are naiive, presumptuous and beside the point. So even though Eastwood's character ends up with a cigarette lighter in his right hand rather than the magnum pistol it's assumed he's reaching for, the strange hold that guns have, especially on Americans, the potential of guns to "equalize" us all, quickly and decisively, is a stronger, more lingering image, I'm afraid, than the restored Gran Torino. If Eastwood makes one more film (he had vowed before "Gran Torino" to do no more acting), I can't imagine a stronger, more valuable or memorable closer than a movie exposing guns for the anachronisms they have become in a civilized society--unless the director believes that such notions are themselves anachronisms--idealistic fantasies, or hallucinations maybe, of the '60s flower children. But given his love of jazz and American music, I know that he would support, instead of guns in young people's hands, a musical instrument, preferably one that is not a synthesizer.
I viewed the film in Blu Ray, though Eastwood's preference for a "noirish" cast, even to his color tones (witness a first-class film noir gem like "Tightrope" from 1985), makes normal DVD an equally compelling choice.
[Coda: A undeniable item of curiosity (apart from its critical importance to the plot) is the cigarette lighter that replaces the handgun in Eastwood's final scene. At a point midway in the film we see him coughing up blood, and a comment by the Hmong boy (or is it his sister?) that he should stop smoking strongly implies that he's suffering from lung cancer (given his stubborn character, a doctor would be the last to know). So either way--a gun or a lighter--the object in his left shirt pocket is emblematic of his end, the only question being whether it will be instantaneous or prolonged. It's even plausible that he knows his days are numbered and chooses what he believes is the best way out for all concerned.]
