Gran Torino

I wasn't really sure if this film was meant to be hysterical, especially since it's my first venture into the Clint Eastwood universe. I know, I know, I should see the classics and the "Oscar" worthy Million Dollar Baby, but I just haven't put much of an effort into either. I also can barely stand Hilary "dank" Swank's persona, unless she plays something closer to her personality a winy obnoxious teenager AKA Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie or The Next Karate Kid.

Anyway, Adam had been dying to see Gran Torino, and I heard fairly positive reviews from good friend Ms. Brandon Krajewski. The papers glorified it for the most part, it was number one for a while (before that shiteous Mall Cop bumped it) and every time I saw the TV spots where Clint Eastwood holds a gun up and garbles the line "Get off my lawn," I couldn't help but laugh.
Like I said earlier, I thought it was a laugh riot and I don' t know if I should have but I couldn't help it. Eastwood said some of the worst and most offensive things you can say to a minority while most of the characters grinned and bared it but ended up redeeming himself in the end (as most of his films tend to do, or so I've heard.)

You have to take in account my surroundings, a mostly white suburban theater from the Midwest watching a film about a crotchety old veteran from the Midwest but everyone else was laughing too. I tried thinking about replacing all the racial slurs with gay hate words too see if I would still laugh, but I found the idea of a gay hating veteran befriending a bunch of queens hard to swallow. Obviously it would be a completely different movie with a much shittier budget and acting because most of all gay movies are shit but I still didn't find it offensive.

I guess the viewers would have to be the judge of it, and I'm sure if you're Asian you'd either hate the film or love it. Overall, I thought it was an amazing film. Extremely interesting and well acted for the most part. Maybe Clint was effortlessly acting mimicking the same character from previous films, but I found his role to be the most interesting and best acted. There was something redeeming about him and I liked the way things were revealed without relying on too much storytelling or dialogue. The script was pretty fantastic and the film didn't turn into a gang banger/revenge plot that most people probably hoped it would be. I really liked the innocence and realistic ending that wasn't over the top (For Ex:his character didn't leave the Hmong family his entire fortune or brutally kill the bad guys in the end.) It ended very peacefully with a creepy two minute rendition from Clint Eastwood of the song Gran Torino originally performed by Jamie Cullum.

All I could think after the films ending was Clint Eastwood should have had an Academy Award nomination. Even if he didn't win, I thought he was very good and who knows how much longer he'll be around? It's not like he doesn't have other awards lying around but he definitely deserved some recognition for a ballsy film.