“Gran Torino” (2008)

Few Hollywood stars have managed a graceful exit from the cinema.  Most go on well past their use by date, content to see their careers wind down in sometimes meaningless cameo roles, voice only performances in animation or second rate leads in minor, made-for-television features.  Some are given or construct the perfect final part, triumph in it, and then muddy the waters by taking on just one more role.  Charlie Chaplin comes to mind: he wrote himself a stunning, career summation character in “Limelight”, then almost wrecked the good work by following it five years later with the comparatively negligible “A King in New York”.  A decade after that came the utterly disastrous “A Countess from Hong Kong”.

The most memorable final performance from a major Hollywood icon is given by John Wayne in “The Shootist”.  This happened largely by accident.  The Duke had no intention of retiring but the cancer he played so convincingly on screen returned in real life and sadly claimed him. 

I am absolutely certain that Clint Eastwood knows “The Shootist” almost as well as he understands his own career.  Eastwood is sometimes thought of as a latter day John Wayne.  He certainly succeeded him as king of the American box office and as the leading western icon of the age.

“Gran Torino” is a lovingly crafted farewell to acting from Eastwood which not only references the body of its star’s and director’s work but in someways acknowledges Wayne’s last film.  If the Duke affirmed the need to stand up and be counted, bare arms against your foe and die with your boots on, Big Clint offers a more nuanced message grounded in Christian sacrifice.  The guns are still present, it’s just sometimes, in the post-”Unforgiven” twilight years, they remain holstered.

Not that Eastwood plays a tree-hugging hippie or even the geriatric equivalent thereof.  His Walt Kowalski is a grizzled, cantankerous Korean war veteran whose language if not his philosophy is suffused with racism and reactionary attitudes.  The film opens with the funeral of his wife and it is quickly established that Walt has very little time for the balance of his family.  His life has been reduced to the fierce maintenance of his property, drinking American beer on his porch, and conducting one-sided conversations with his loyal, if equally aged, dog.

Already aggrieved at how his neighbourhood has been “taken over” by recent immigrant groups Kowalski’s ire is further raised when Thao, a teenaged Vietnamese neighbour, attempts to steal his prize possession: a 1972 Gran Torino car, a vehicle he himself had helped construct.  Subsequent events see Kowalski come to Thao and his family’s assistance when they are hassled by a local youth gang.  Ironically lauded as a hero, he becomes drawn into their world, taking Thao under his wing after realising that he has more in common with “the gooks” than his own flesh and blood.

Eastwood the filmmaker walks a fine line in the early scenes with his young co-star.  There is a danger of tipping into sentiment, of “Gran Torino” becoming an inverted “Karate Kid”, with the American teaching his Asian apprentice about the ways of the masculine world.  Thankfully the script, the direction and the acting are better than that.  There is real wit in a sequence in which Kowalski attempts to “man up” Thao by instructing him on the finer points of verbal abuse.  Eastwood clearly remembers how to play and pace comedy: the scenes are a kind of homage to the late 70s/early 80s phase of his career when he first flirted with self parody.

For the most part though “Gran Torino” engages with ideas about violence and retribution which have always been central to the Eastwood persona.  Much as in “Unforgiven”, his undisputed masterpiece, and in “The Shootist”, the narrative builds toward a standard revenge fantasy moment where Walt is expected to take on the gang in retaliation for atrocities visited upon his new friends.

The exact conclusion should be discovered first hand.  Suffice it to say Eastwood brings the curtain down on fifty two years of acting, forty four of them as an A list star, with grace and intelligence.  There is even an unexpected pleasure over the end credits: Clint’s own craggy voice, sounding very much like that of his “Paint Your Wagon” co-star Lee Marvin, to remind us all that musicianship is another of the septuagenarian’s talents.  Let us hope he continues behind the camera for many more years to come, and has the sense to leave us wanting more when it comes to appearing before it.