A shallow effort from director/star Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino may have been better served with a more thick-witted title, something along the lines of Bitter Old Man Points Guns at Minorities.
Not that there isn't fertile ground for exploration along these lines; Eastwood's isolated, closed-minded widower could have been an excellent vehicle for prodding a number of inherent stereotypes present in modern American suburbia. Instead of meeting those issues head-on, though, it spends most of its time stalking up and down the sidelines and, often, reinforcing the kind of bull-headed resistance to different cultures that, at the outset, it seemed ready to confront.
I had a hard time accepting any of this film's main players as anything more than thin caricatures, especially considering the bland, straightforward dialog they're given to work with, and that resulted in a major emotional disconnect during the story’s climax. Eastwood's jaded war veteran never seems to completely move beyond his biases and, shamefully, the film's resolution only serves to prove him right for failing to do so. A plodding, incomplete picture that will ultimately be remembered for the single quotable line heard in its trailer.
Shout by drqshadowBlockedParent2020-02-06T19:12:48Z
A shallow effort from director/star Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino may have been better served with a more thick-witted title, something along the lines of Bitter Old Man Points Guns at Minorities.
Not that there isn't fertile ground for exploration along these lines; Eastwood's isolated, closed-minded widower could have been an excellent vehicle for prodding a number of inherent stereotypes present in modern American suburbia. Instead of meeting those issues head-on, though, it spends most of its time stalking up and down the sidelines and, often, reinforcing the kind of bull-headed resistance to different cultures that, at the outset, it seemed ready to confront.
I had a hard time accepting any of this film's main players as anything more than thin caricatures, especially considering the bland, straightforward dialog they're given to work with, and that resulted in a major emotional disconnect during the story’s climax. Eastwood's jaded war veteran never seems to completely move beyond his biases and, shamefully, the film's resolution only serves to prove him right for failing to do so. A plodding, incomplete picture that will ultimately be remembered for the single quotable line heard in its trailer.