Thursday, November 7, 2013

Gran Torino - Movie Review

Gran Torino

Gran Torino - Client Eastwood
          Cast : Clint Eastwood, Christopher Carley, Bee Wang, Ahney Her
                    
          The movie Gran Torino is not about the car. It is more about finding friends in unwanted places, discovering trust, worthiness, motivating others to chance upon their internal strength, to fight back and more importantly to fight and oppose the notion of fighting back.
          
          Walt Kowalski, played by Clint Eastwood is a grumpy old war veteran who doesn't like the neighborhood but won't leave it either. He can't come to terms with his sons and their families. The loss of his wife is like the last nail on his coffin. He detests his Hmong neighbours and the fact that the boy in the Hmong family (Thao) attempts to steal his Gran Torino to prove himself to be a part of the rowdy and nasty Hmong gang doesn't help much. The boy gets caught. As a part of gaining forgiveness, Thao has to work for Walt. Eventually Walt takes it on himself to give some wort to the boys' life and inject a dose of self esteem into him. Both the boy and the old man find a reason to live in themselves.           
          
          However, the local gang doesn't like this association and wants the boy to be a part of their gang and when he refuses, they hurt him badly. Walt hits out on one of the gang members and as a revenge, the gang members rape the boys sister and mutilate her. The boy wants vengeance and wants Walt to help him kill the gang members. The war veteran knows that it is easy to kill, but also has learnt the hard way that after the killings, it is difficult to live each day reliving the cold eyes of the body you pumped bullets into. He knows because he was part of many such killings in Korea as a result of which each day he has to fight against those ghostly thoughts and living this lonely life has become worse than death.

          To save the Hmong boy from making the same mistake, Walt sacrifices himself. His will has nothing for his sons who are anyway doing well. He writes his house to charity while he gives his Gran Torino, the closest to his heart, a symbol of his pride to his newly formed friend, the Hmong boy, Thao.
          
          This movie is about friendship, about sacrificing yourself for the betterment of others. It is also about the false notion of youths who have digressed in their goalless lives who think and feel that power of the gun is the real power.
          
          I simply love Client Eastwoods' direction and his acting too. I find his grumpy sarcasm to be very humorous. Another of his directed movies, The Million Dollar Baby is one of my all time favourite. If you have to live that long, you should hope to age gracefully like Clint Eastwood or Amitabh Bachhan. 

Gran Torino - Ford

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