Gran Torino Review

Nick Schenk's script is a small, almost stage-bound story, and Eastwood shoots it that way, with Tom Stern keeping the palette as grey as the neighbourhood. The joke of the first hour is Walt himself, who snarls slurs at everyone, including his barber, where the insults are a form of friendship, and who slowly discovers that the Hmong family next door treats him better than his own children do. Eastwood's face, which Manohla Dargis compared to petrified wood, does most of the work, and Kenneth Turan noted that he makes 'Get off my lawn' sound as menacing as 'Make my day'.

The problem is almost everyone else. Of the ten principal Hmong actors only one had acted before, and while Bee Vang and Ahney Her are game, many scenes play stiffly. Hmong critics have also pointed to cultural details that are wrong or exoticized, and to the familiar shape of an old white man redeeming a community. The ending is a real answer to the vigilante films that made Eastwood famous, though, and it lands. It grossed $270 million, the second-biggest result of his career, which suits a minor film carried by a major star.