'Gran Torino': From Tough to Tolerant

by Brett Parker

To watch Clint Eastwood in his latest film, Gran Torino is to observe an endangered species of the American male. As Walt Kowalski, a Korean War veteran and retired Ford auto worker, Eastwood embodies a beer-chugging, gun-toting man’s man who pushes his racist thoughts and old school philosophies out in the open for all to see. You can say he’s conservative with a vengeance. We are also seeing the quintessential movie tough guy of yesterday busting out his anger in a world that has grown much softer and more politically correct. There are several shots in this film where Eastwood looks like a Martian trying to understand the human beings around him.

Walt is a man who has a lot to be unsettled about. For starters, his wife has just passed away. He is far from close with his salesman son (Brian Haley) and his family, who regard Walt more like an agitating nuisance than a family member. This leaves Walt to live out his days with his faithful dog, Daisy, while pounding beers on his porch. Walt is also displeased with the fact that Hmong immigrants appear to be moving in all over his neighborhood, particularly right next door to his house. Walt is a bitter racist who is a hand at racial jokes and has no shyness in referring to minorities with stereotypical names. His relationship with his Italian-American barber holds interesting displays of name-calling.

One night, Walt hears a noise in his garage and discovers Thao (Bee Vang), the teenage member of the Hmong family next door, trying to steal his Gran Torino, a vintage car Walt helped construct during his Ford days. It turns out that Thao was threatened by a local Hmong gang into trying to steal the car. When the gang tries to punish Thao for his failure on Walt’s front lawn, Walt intervenes with his old war rifle and tough talks the gang away (“Get off my lawn!”). From that moment on, Thao’s family looks at Walt like a hero and makes elaborate attempts to thank him and include him in their life. The Hmong neighbors place gifts at his doorstep. Thao’s sister, Sue (Ahney Her), invites Walt over for a family dinner in which Walt calls the Hmong family every name in the book. Thao is ordered by his family to make amends with Walt by helping him out with various chores.

As Thao begins working for Walt, a slight friendship begins to grow between them. Walt begins to let his guard down and gets to know Thao and his family. He realizes he is a good and decent kid with a lot of potential. Walt decides to instill his old school values in Thao, including how to talk among real men, finding the courage to talk to women, and how to get a career going in construction. As Walt tries to jumpstart a promising lifestyle for Thao, the Hmong gang that threatened Thao refuse to go away and grow increasingly hostile towards his family. This causes Walt to not only confront his own racial anger but also to devise a plan that will save Thao from further violence.

With the election of Barack Obama as our next president, it is said that a new world of acceptance and tolerance will emerge and thick-headed people who favor old, ignorant ways will be seriously left behind. Gran Torino is like a glimpse of this new world through the eyes of an old-world inhabitant, one who becomes increasingly aware that he is a rapidly dying breed. Walt’s racism and macho mindset alienates him from other characters (not just minorities) and he truly appears as an outsider in almost every shot in this film. Perhaps he decides to open up to his neighbors because harboring such resentment and bitterness all by ones self seems overbearing. Walt’s transition from racist to sympathetic is handled with skillful conviction and subtlety. It’s very comforting to know that perhaps a close-minded growler like Walt could learn to be understanding and accepting of different races and cultures. In a way, this movie is a more articulate and sophisticated study of racism than Crash.

Not only is this film a unique study of racial acceptance but it can also be viewed as a meditation on the vintage Hollywood tough guy. If you’re one of those moviegoers who pines for the gun-toting, tough talking Eastwood from the Dirty Harry days, then Gran Torino is the film for you. Eastwood packs pistols and hurls raging profanity at thugs and hooligans who bring trouble in his path. It’s the tough guy persona Eastwood has come to embody and perfect throughout his career, only this time it’s basked in irony and nostalgia. While this persona felt like the norm in past films, it appears jarring this time. The characters in this film appear so mild and gentle that Eastwood’s hostile gruffness comes across as extreme and mad. It flirts with self-parody, but since Eastwood also directed the film, we know he’s in control of his own image. They don’t make tough guys like they used to. Eastwood reflects a time when action heroes were more unapologetic, aggressive, strict, and genuinely intimidating, unlike the polished, self-conscious pretty boys of today. Gran Torino not only reflects a certain passing of ignorance, but one of masculine toughness as well. Is there no room for macho tough-guy-swagger in Obama’s new world of hope?

With Eastwood in the director’s chair, you can expect penetrating drama done with minimalist skills and relaxed patience. Gran Torino is no exception. The film holds the levels of professionalism and ideas we’ve come to expect from Eastwood’s filmography, elevated this time by his throwback performance. While the film shows flaws with its pacing and some stagy moments (not to mention Eastwood’s shockingly distracting vocals on the film’s title song), this is still an exceptional work. It’s fascinating how the film, like Walt’s prized Gran Torino serves as both a relic of earlier times and eventually becomes a symbol of hopeful change.