While it seemed like Gran Torino was set to receive mixed reviews, many of the major papers have fallen in love with it and with Clint all over again. The NY Times’ Manohla Dargis writes:
That probably sounds heavier than I mean, but “Gran Torino” doesn’t go down lightly. Despite all the jokes — the scenes of Walt lighting up at female flattery and scrambling for Hmong delicacies — the film has the feel of a requiem. Melancholy is etched in every long shot of Detroit’s decimated, emptied streets and in the faces of those who remain to still walk in them. Made in the 1960s and ’70s, the Gran Torino was never a great symbol of American automotive might, which makes Walt’s love for the car more poignant. It was made by an industry that now barely makes cars, in a city that hardly works, in a country that too often has felt recently as if it can’t do anything right anymore except, every so often, make a movie like this one.
Kenneth Turan after the cut.
And Turan, writing for the LA Times:
As this closeness grows, “Gran Torino” will start to feel familiar and create concern that this is all there is to the film. It is familiar, but only to a point. Suddenly, that point is past and much more serious questions come up, questions of responsibility, of vengeance, of the efficacy of blood for blood. These questions seem to take Kowalski himself by surprise. It’s almost as if Clint Eastwood all at once finds himself in a different movie than either he, or us, really expected. But if the last few years have proved anything, it’s that anywhere Eastwood is, movie audiences are wise to follow.
There is something John McCain American about the film, which makes it quite timely for right now in so much that times have changed dramatically and overnight as Obama has become President. The Eastwood character indicates, perhaps, this kind of change from racist old white guy to someone who feels like we really are the melting pot we pretend to be. But I remain a bit baffled as to why no critic seems to directly deal with the idea of justice being wrought by the apparently only capable person in the film, a Korean war vet (aka old white guy) – he has never felt the need to make politically correct films but if you’re Spike Lee you gotta be hurting about now. This perhaps surprises me the most about the critical reception of the film, and is a great example of why critics still matter in the Oscar race. We don’t, we never have, done this in a vacuum.
That makes me wonder about the film’s ultimate trajectory, whether it will be a major player or not. Unlike Letters from Iwo Jima and Million Dollar Baby it hasn’t been winning the critics’ awards. For instance, if the LA Film critics had chosen it over Wall-E, all bets would be off and this would be a major best picture contender. On the other hand, these latest reviews are enough to give Warner Bros. something to use for their campaign, which would then be in direct competition with The Dark Knight.
Eastwood’s acting nomination seems secure, along with a screenplay nod. Can it crack Best Director and Picture?
74 Responses for "Gran Torino Launches with High Praise from Top Critics"
Maybe this one is the Clint Eastwood-movie that I really do like without restrictions? I doubt that. I liked “Mystic River”, but all in all Eastwood is the most overrated living filmmaker I know…
Oh, Manohla–so right about The Reader, so wrong about this one.
I have to quietly dissent and respectfully ask: If Gran Torino is so extraordinary, where are the scores of 100 on metacritic?
Andrew Sarris begins his Gran Torino review by saying he ran out of superlatives to describe it. But I challenge anyone to find a single superlative phrase in his very timid and lukewarm review.
Scores of 90 are something to be proud of. But nothing to be in awe of.
Gran Torino feels like a good B+ movie to me.
Am I wrong to think movies nominated for Best Picture should be A and A+ ?
14 reviews are not enough basis on which to judge. I’m in no hurry to jump to conclusions. I want to wait and see for myself.
But movies without unqualified raves do not get Best Picture nominations. Even Crash had 4 perfect scores of 100. (The Departed had 13. No Country had 20. There Will Be Blood had 23.)
I can say one thing with certainty. I read this script, and I know I’ve read 10 better ones this year. Manola Dargis has her opinion. This is mine.
Mr. Eastwood seems to be dealing with different types of violence in his movies. It would interesting to see Eastwood and Woody Allen in a dinner party and chat. About movies, perhaps jazz. Perhaps talk about belts and high pants.
Clin’ts body looks like The Elephant Man in that picture, good god…
Gran Torino currently metacrits at 79/14 (Turan 90); Changeling settled at 63/38 (Turan 80).
Clin’ts body looks like The Elephant Man in that picture, good god…
But not in the movie, I’ll give him that.
I’m a little tired of old white guys with all the answers — answers they claim to know, but won’t use to solve real problems. Answers that only work for situations contrived for speeches and movie plots.
McCain: “My friends, I know how to win wars.”
Really? Which wars would those be?
McCain: “My friends, I know how to catch Osama bin Laden.”
Great! When do you plan to do it? Can you at least tell someone else the secret so they can do it?
I know there are people — McCain included — who call Asian people ‘gooks.’ I’m really bored with trying to understand those people. The country will be a better place when those people stop trying to save us and teach us lessons. It’ll be a greater country when those people go away.
Ok, so maybe critics aren’t falling all over themselves, but my interest is renewed.
When the trailer first hit, I thought “cool, a Dirty Old Harry movie” But the more I saw the trailer the thinner it started to look. Word of positive reviews from the biggies sort of gets me going again.
Sure, maybe they have the same Clint bias as the Academy, but damnit so do I when he’s in his own movies.
I’m interested to see where this is headed too. Plenty of reviews yet to come; plenty of time for the falling-all-over-themselves to happen. I don’t need to be right, I don’t want the movie to be strange, but I don’t need to join the conga line yet either.
If I’m being a vigilante, it’s because I’ve seen too many movies that teach me how getting riled up and growling is the solution to everything.
I saw this movie, and it is really good. I thought it was better than Million Dollar Baby and Mystic River. The problem I have with this analysis is the Presidential election crap. I’m sorry Sasha, but your attitude concerning Obama with “change” and John McCain as “old white man (i.e. subtle racism)” is a little strange. First off, Obama isn’t change, it’s just another questionable politician, bred out that cesspool that is Chicago politics. The man is already surrounded by a scandal, and he hasn’t even taken office yet…Boy, real change we can believe in. Political correctness is a form of censorship. You can’t ever be honest when using PC terms. Spike Lee is a pretentious, paranoid individual. He’s just jealous that Clint Eastwood doesn’t tiptoe around his insecurities.
Much as he made a repudiation for the westerns he made in the early seventies with Unforgiven in 1992, I hear that he does the same with the Dirty Harry films in Gran Torino.
I love how Eastwood makes these films like Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, and now Gran Torino that on the surface look like one thing but end up having to do with much deeper issues. For example, Million Dollar Baby on the surface looks like a boxing movie but in the end it has NOTHING to do with boxing. Really impressive filmmaker.
Ryan Adams – NO NO NO NO NO NO
Clint Eastwood aint McCain. Shit, Mccain wishes he was Eastwood.
If anything, Eastwood is for me what Republicanism should be about: Not so damn obsessive on religious issues like gays, abortion, evolution….worry more about the merit of Men that defines people instead of such trivial aggregates that don’t define what character quality is….likes guns, but isn’t paranoid that Obama is gonna go Nazi and confiscate all guns*…..let you do your own damn work, not let the government just hand it out to you…Reasonable on most issues…be a proud America, but don’t use that as an idiotic excuse for xenophobia…
Yeah Eastwood liked Sarah Palin, which I just don’t get. OK, she’s also from the West and likes guns too, but whatever. Clint is still mother fucking Clint Eastwood, and otherwise he’s a cool guy on and off the screen, so I won’t go ballistic on that front.
As for GRAN TORINO, someone I know that did see it described it to me as “the last grand hurrah of DIRTY HARRY.”
Now what he meant by that wasn’t that its another Eastwood-shoots-everyone-to-save-the-day flick, but more like Eastwood possibly playing that legendary persona of his that was mostly typified by his 1960s and 70s work, from A FISTFULL OF DOLLARS to DIRTY HARRY, and all those other pictures of that time that Eastwood delegated his well-honed cinema persona to. This persona continued through the 80s (SUDDEN IMPACT) to the 1990s (IN THE LINE OF FIRE), and apparently GRAN TORINO is that same basic character’s final act.
Its funny, but Eastwood has been playing disgruntled old ass kickers since the 80s at least. But he’s fucking reliable as a pair of tennis shoes or a stick of gum, so I’ll go see GRAN TORINO with my old man.
Go ahead, make my day Academy!
*=Which is so fucking stupid. Dear Lord some people just aren’t born with common sense.
I didn’t say Eastwood is McCain, or vice versa, RRA. I said McCain calls Asians gooks, and so does Walt Kowalski, and people who do that are mentally messed up in my opinion. I gave up trying to figure them out a long time ago, and now I’m content to let time kill them off, one by one, attrition.
In my experience, people like that don’t change. They just fake that they’ve changed, and that’s even more dangerous than showing us who they really are. Disgruntled old asskickers bore the living fuck out of me. If that’s what this movie is, I’m not interested. I hope it’s something more. I keep hearing how Clint repudiates all the violence of his past films, but I keep waiting for him to make a movie about something else besides girls getting their necks snapped and disgruntled old asskickers shooting rifles off the front porch.
Surely there’s a better way to repudiate violence than to continue making movies where the hero spends the first 90 minutes doing violent shit he needs to repudiate in the last couple of scenes. Because I guarantee you, most people are not paying to see these movies because they love the 5 minutes of repudiation so much.
Curious: what inspired the BP rank change where Doubt now sits atop Dark Knight? Rev Road I can see, thanks to the Globe nod, but I’m not convinced Doubt’s acting support from the foreign press translates to any hints of its newfound strength over TDK.
Honestly I’m tired of these white racist befriends minority and in the end learns to be tolerant all while saving the minorities from themselves kind of films. At least from the trailer that is what this film looks what its about. If I’m wrong someone please tell me.
Sing it, Ryan! Couldn’t agree with you more. If Gran Torino ends up being simply a movie about an old disgruntled asskicker, I’m not interested, even if said asskicker is Eastwood, and even if he learns a little Hollywood lesson about “tolerance” at the end. Just boring to me.
Plus I find it interesting that some people are already jumping at the bit to tie this whole Blagojevich scandal around Obama’s neck. The reasoning seems to be this:
Bladgojevich is corrupt.
Bladgojevich is a politician from Chicago.
Obama is a politician from Chicago.
Therefore, Obama is corrupt.
Alrighty then!
“Am I wrong to think movies nominated for Best Picture should be A and A+ ?”
No you’re not. But you should really tell that to the assholes who made Crash a Best Picture nominee. And Chocolat. And Seabiscuit. And The Hours. And Little Miss Sunshine. And Ghost. And Four Weddings And A Funeral. Etc.
Not completely off topic, but… is anyone else sick of reading Roger Ebert’s reviews? Every single review or story he writes is turning into Obama-praising, Bush-n-McCain-bashing, political garbage. Oh, I long for the days when film reviews actually reviewed the film (or when discussion threads actually talked about the topic).
Anyway, I’m not a big Clint fan, this film looks mildly interesting, but of course he’s playing the one that saves the world! First of all, a Clint movie has always been about Clint and only Clint; my biggest issue with MILLION DOLLAR BABY was that it should’ve been about Hilary Swank’s character, but instead focused entirely on Clint’s character. Second of all, any filmmaker makes their point of view the center. That’s why American characters come up with the smart ideas in all the action movies (INDEPENDENCE DAY, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, etc.). And it’s not just us; James Bond saves the world, while the Felix Leiter-types are dummies used as comic relief. That’s just how it is.
Just so everyone knows, I mean to say that none of those movies are A or A+ films. They’re not all bad, or on an equal level of good. The one thing all those movies have in common is that they’re not great. And there was at least one movie at the time that deserved a nod more than each of them.
My own theory about Gran Torino getting mixed reviews is that there are at least two ways to take it — one is if its particular understated but very powerful themes speak to you, and the other is if you’re just looking at the plot. Eastwood isn’t beating anyone over the head about what this movie is. It’s there to experience or not. I think at his age he’s got a few things he needs to say, and he’s saying them his way, and if the message doesn’t connect, it doesn’t connect, but I think he made this movie for his own reasons and, for me anyway, the messages are extraordinary ones.
Well, let’s see how the Asians sound in the movie. The problem with Asians in the movies is they do not sound like anyone I know in real life.
So what’s up with growly voice and vigilantism–as in batman and clint?
Bebe, I’m interested to know what you got out of Gran Torino. I ask this out of genuine curiosity. What about the film spoke to you?
I agree, Bebe, and I’m not even saying it’s getting mixed reviews. On the contrary, thus far the reviews are all falling very neatly in line along a very high plateau. So far nothing rising above that plateau, and nothing sinking into a crevice either. No hate, but not exactly adoration either. Everyone is being very respectfully appreciative, and I can admire a movie like that as well as anyone else.
You’re also right that at this point all I have to go on is the plot and the tone of the screenplay. It bugged me. It left a bad aftertaste, for me. But I know a lot can change between script and screen.
Finally, I know I’m hypersensitive because all my closest companions and friends and partners have always been Asian, Latino, Black, and when I’ve dealt with these issues in reality all my life, the last thing I want to sit through is a pat tidy package that wraps things up with hugs and birthday candles. And wall-to-wall racial epithets.
I might think there are other better ways to express a message, but I’m not going to tell Picasso he used too much blue. It’s his art. And it’s my choice to decide whether or not it shows me anything I want to look at.
OMG, this site is a web cell of Clint Eastwood’s adversaries
No reviews quoting/comparing “Gran Torino” with Sam Fuller’s “White Dog”? Somehow the trailer for Clint’s gave a impression of a distant, but for real, similarity.
I just read in Associated Press.
HUGH JACKMAN is gonna be the host of the 81° Acadeny Awards!
Host… Presenter is a better word.
Hugh Jackman is said to be the host of 2009 Oscar Awards.
I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw this trailer in theaters.
I really can’t handle Eastwood anymore. After the saintliness of Million Dollar Baby…everything else he’s done has just kind of soured.
It’s nice that people love him, but it’s gotten to the point where, you know, give other people a chance. But when have the Oscars ever been fair?
ha, Jaoa. Adversaries? Not at all. I think Mystic River and Unforgiven are two of the finest films I’ve ever seen. They’re treasures in my DVD cabinet. Letters from Iwo Jima, almost as great to me. Other Eastwood movies I like less, and a couple of his award-winners you couldn’t pay me to watch again. (well, ok, you could pay me, but it would have to be enough for me to buy another better movie.)
Nope, I’m probably pretty much alone in my stance here, and in fact I haven’t even really taken a stance. I’m just not ready to say it looks like this movie is going to be sitting on the shelf next to Unforgiven and Mystic. Not in my apartment. I’ll be very happy if I’m wrong, but it’ll take some kind of crazy magic to turn the script I read into a movie I’ll like. f anybody can work that kind of magic, though, it’s Eastwood.
As an Asian American I’m skeptical about this film. I’ll wait until I see it until I pass judgment–but watching a white racist finally learning that “others’ aren’t so bad isn’t my idea of a lesson I need to watch at the movies. Obviously I’m not the target audience for this. Maybe Clint could remake the movie from the POV of the Hmong characters.
Alfredo, I feel pretty close to what Manohla said in her review. I don’t want to write a bunch of spoilers, but I think all the different threads in this story dovetail at the end. There are a lot of things going on, imho, having to do with usefulness, injury, the walls we put up, for whatever reason – not just Walt but all the male characters in the film – and lessons that have been forgotten but which are vitally important to the current generations of young men.
Ryan, I’m not sure if seeing the movie will change your impression if you didn’t like the script. For me, Walt’s not a racist, filled with hate with a specific ethnic group a la KKK; he’s prejudiced, ignorant and set in his ways, a la Archie Bunker. He hates his own pampered white kids as thoroughly as he hates his poor Hmong neighbors — and all for the same reason. The epithets he slings aren’t criticisms of people – it’s his way of dealing with people. Everyone has been locked out because of his deeply hidden and concealed wounds. I think both characters have deep, essential needs that have been unmet in their lives, and through their friendship, they heal each other. There are also much broader threads that Manohla touches on in her review – about American usefulness, about cities, about people and situations that exist and haven’t been aired out in the open except in this movie. None of the casually presented elements of this movie have ever been on the news and yet it’s a HUGE part of contemporary life in America. Everyone I talked to knows a Walt. Everyone knows a holdout in a neighborhood. Everyone knows a Thao, not necessarily Hmong but whatever race. There’s a lot of injury and abandonment in this country right now, a lot of people and places that have been given up on, a lot of people who have never been singled out for praise or interest or any kind of usefulness, a lot of disconnected people separated by very realistic barriers that have the appropriate tools to complete each other behind these impenetrable walls. That’s why I believe Gran Torino is deceptively simple, and if it rubs you the wrong way because of superficial elements, I think it’s a shame because I do believe there’s a lot to take in about it that’s incredibly worthy and unspoken, and, yeah, important.
I am a huge Clint fan, but as I already said not a fanatical (hate “Midnight in the Garden…”, “Blod Work”).
Again: but it’s pretty clear to me that people are tired of Clint (I’m not, I’m not), more specifically tired of Clint at the Academy Awards. Not a problem: no way he is gonna triumph this season. Some nods, zero wins. And you know what? Nelson Mandela is a glory for mankind, but if Clint’s project about him is gonna be 10% as crappoy as Bille’s August “Goodbye Bafana” (poor Dennys Haybert, poor Josephi Fiennes), well, next parade to Old Eastwood…. the Razzie Awards.
I’m sorry, but as much as I respect Eastwood as a director, I don’t know why he has been considered almost a lock from the very beginning. I think he can be good when he wants to, but putting him on the same list as Sean Penn… It’s not just that Penn plays in a different league, he plays a whole different sport.
And I’ll continue expressing my negativity today by saying that I’m not buying this one. The plot didn’t really sound exciting to me already, but it’s also the feeling that we’ve been forced fed into believing this would be the real deal since Changeling didn’t get the unanimous raves it was meant to, and I’m sorry (again) but I’d rather choose what I want to swallow.
The way I can tell Clint Eastwood is going to win the Best Actor Award: Mickey Rourke and Sean Penn deserve it more.
The man is already surrounded by a scandal, and he hasn’t even taken office yet…Boy, real change we can believe in.
-The man also doesn’t have a scandal around him. Everyone from Chicago is not Obama, believe it or not.
-Ryan, I agree with you completely! Your analysis was completely in line with my thinking. I will withhold more negative claims until I actually see the film, but the trailer and Eastwood constantly popping in and out every year as a sort of December surprise is starting to wear on me.
-And Chris Price, agree with too, and good examples. I thought Seabiscuit in particular was a forgettable, laughably textbook film that was pretty but nothing else.
On some real shit, Clint never does anything but play a tough, mean old bastard and that shit gets old. Hes been doing it for decades so how come people still call it acting?
Manohla Dargis is just trying to compensate because she unfairly and
quite viciously trashed The Changeling because of her Jolie bias. I think there are other critics who are trying to compensate as well. The movie got unfairly panned but it got the nominations. I think it will increase the unfounded animosity toward the film. A lot of people who never had a problem with Eastwood have started to dislike him because of his connection to Jolie. What seems like a good thing for Jolie always gets twisted against her and ends up as part of the curse. Their few allies also suffer. The nominations will increase the wrath for her and I bet a bunch of people will claim she did not deserve the nomination when she did. The crazy bias has become even more corrupt because of the false confession spin. For the record, neither of them ever did because it is not true. Don’t trust what you read about them, even if the media claims the words came from them. Even their own interviews cannot be trusted because the media distorts their comments.
Clint is underrated as an actor. I think people should watch some of his other films outside the Sergio Leone and Dirty Harry Franchise before they blow him off as a thespian. Don’t incorporate a political bias against him. That is not fair because Clint is nothing like Walt. Obama got elected, are you not satisfied? McCain is not racist either. I know you hate anybody who represents the Republican party, but there are lines you keep crossing in your attacks. Your attitude of the opposing party is one of intolerance and negative stereotypes. I think you are very intelligent and I respect many of your opinions but I think you need to hold back on your contempt because you are going overboard.
Ryan, I do agree with your assessment of the movie. I didn’t like Gran Torino. I can’t review it without giving much away. I was more offended by the fact it was a mediocre movie. It is a C-grade movie and not worth anybody’s time. The negativity and people’s feelings about the plotline are spot-on. Watch it on DVD. I’m a big Clint fan and was sorry to be disappointed. I doubt he will get the Oscar nomination for this movie. I think it will just turn people against him
if this movie receives nominations. A Best Actor nom for him would represent a body of work, it would be a disgrace to his career if he got nominated for this. Every great celeb makes mistakes. Gran Torino is his biggest cinematic mistake. I hope it does not turn people off Eastwood because I understand his artistic intentions but the movie could not pull it off. I was proud of The Changeling and I have great hopes for The Human Factor starring Morgan Freeman.
Gran Torino should not and will not receive a Best Picture and Best Director nomination. I doubt this will get Oscar nominations for anything. Its biggest chance is screenplay.
“While it seemed like Gran Torino was set to receive mixed reviews,..”
LoL. Did it Sasha? I wasn’t aware any credible reviewers had given GT a negative review. But wait, are we by any chance not talking about credible reviewers? Are we in fact talking about a couple of nonentity bloggers? Perhaps they go by the names of Poland & Tapley even?
Wow, I gotta call some serious bullshit… the screening I saw was FULL of critics who were laughing throughout the movie and it was an awkward laughing, more at the movie than with it (at least so I thought) and I think a lot of them are just too chicken to criticize Clint… the movie is mediocre… the proof will be in the box office performance when audiences realize that the critics are once again full of shit. I could are less whether people think I’m “credible” or not but I do know how to judge by what’s on the screen and Gran Torino is full of pacing and performance problems… I’ve seen it twice in two different settings and never felt it was more than mediocre (which put it slightly ahead of Changeling)
I didn’t know what to expect when I went to see the film today, but while it does have some flaws I felt the film really paid off, was a big improvement over Changeling (which I felt had some highly effective stuff but was a mess in many ways), and deserves its good reviews.
While it is probably at best 8th or so on the best picture depth chart right now, I wouldn’t have a problem if the film surprises us with the academy and against the likely nominees I’ve seen so far I would rank it ahead of Milk and Dark Knight and not far behind Slumdog Millionaire and Frost/Nixon.
Gran Torino is the best film of the year.Clint Eastwood’s performance is one of the best performances of all times, and the best performance of the year.I think this year the oscar for best actor has a name:Clint eastwood for Gran Torino.Clint Eastwood had made some of the best performances of all times:Unforgiven,Million dollar baby,Dirty Harry,Escape from Alcatraz,The beguiled,In the line of fire.The bridges of Madison county or The outlaw Josey Wales among others.Now, with Gran Torino, Clint eastwood must win the oscar for best actor,because in gran Torino he makes his best performance and the best performance of the year.
I think it’s true that you see what you want to see — I had already read the script when I saw the film and I think that soured it a bit for me. That said, I felt uncomfortable with a few things, especially the last shot which seemed heavy-handed and way over the top. He’s one of my favorite filmmakers but this film felt off in many ways. It’s more like Million Dollar Baby in that it isn’t realistic at all and it plays on primal fear and emotions. I disagree that Clint was saying what he wanted to say; the writer was saying what he wanted to say and Clint was making a movie he liked. The critics giving it such a pass and not calling it out on its obvious flaws it just plain weird but hey, to each his/her own.
Mystic River, Unforgiven, Letters from Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers, even the Dirty Harry movies are all the best things Clint has ever done. Changeling is better than GT, I think. I felt the same way about Million Dollar Baby but that didn’t stop it from winning all of the top Oscars. Doesn’t really matter what I think.
I have read a great deal about GRAN TURINO now and it has to be said that there seems to be a generational split on the movie: grown-ups get it and the kids don’t. As Raymond Chandler once said, it takes twenty years of life to have anything worth saying about it and another twenty to learn how to say it. Like any worthwhile artist Eastwood isn’t making movies for anyone other than Eastwood. If you kids don’t like it, you can just get the hell off of his lawn.
I have been looking at the picture of Clint and that gun with those sad looking Asians in the background.
It feels just as wrong as Mickey Rooney in Breakfast At Tiffany’s.
I’d love to be called a kid, but that would unfortunately be a stretch.
Gran Torino (as I posted in another thread last week) is an old-school Warner Bros. potboiler, down to the telltale use of the black-and-white WB logo at the beginning of the film and during the end credits, the kind of vehicle Cagney, Bogart and Davis starred in all too often back in the day: a working-class comedy/drama. The cinematography, sceenplay, editing and ensemble acting are workmanlike, as you would find in an excellent movie for cable. And Eastwood does a great job undermining his iconic stature, as he has been doing for almost – wow – twenty years now. He curses, he growls, he mocks himself at every turn, but none of this makes the performance award-caliber, especially when he actually manages to overact while underacting. Which is not to say that he isn’t entertaining. I haven’t heard the audience laugh this much in an Eastwood film since he carried an orangutan around.
Gran Torino is also a “controversial” (i.e., politically incorrect), crude, foulmouthed comedy with flashes of drama and sentimentality. For the most part, it doesn’t take itself too seriously. And that’s a very good thing, because it is least satisfying when the melodrama is in the foreground. And all those dark and shadowy posters with a scowling Eastwood, sometimes holding a rifle, do not do the film justice and are plain misleading. Anyway, this is ground that has already been covered — and better, I might add, on cable TV (The Sopranos, Rescue Me, The Shield, etc.)
first of all i have not seen the movie yet so i hold no judgement on whether or not it is award worthy…that said, i cannot believe the clint eastwood bashing for really no reason. The man has made three of the best films of the 00’s (mystic river, million dollar baby, and letter from…) and his performance in baby was amazing. I dont understand why everyone is getting so pissed off that he may be up for more awards before the damn movie has even come out…its ridiculous. And onto the “racist” part…i have to agree with Bebe’s assessment in that just because a person is prejudiced does not altogether make them a racist (again, i have not seen the movie, the character may just be a racist scumbag, but if he really was i dont see why eastwood would make a hero out of him). If any director should be given the benefit of the doubt of at least waiting until his movie is released before he is bashed id say its clint over the last few years, and this nonsense that people are sick of seeing an old white man…blah blah blah…it would be kind of tough for clint to play anything but an old white man (i know i know not the point, yet you talk about that while discussing a clint eastwood character)…all im saying is give the movie a chance to open before completely convincing yourself it cannot be good and before you bash the hell out of it.
one last thing…the man made the movie unforgiven…again he should be given the benefit of the doubt at least until the movie comes out
Sorry, Steve G, but I always give Eastwood the benefit of the doubt. There are very few of his films that I’ve seen that I don’t like. (The Bridges of Madison County and Unforgiven are big favorites from his late work.) However, the movie is out, I’ve seen it and that’s what my opinion is based on, not on a need to bash him for “no reason.” I just don’t think it’s special or awards-worthy.
Except the song — but I prefer Springsteen’s “The Wrestler.”
paul, as long as you have seen the movie i have no problem with anyone bashing it…im not even the biggest eastwood fan (im like most people in not loving changeling or even liking flags of our fathers), i just know that he usually makes quality movies and to bash his performance or the movie based on previously reading the script (which of course will be changed for the movie) or seeing the trailer is ridiculous…thats all that i was saying.
@ stevie g
Bad movies are made from great screenplays all the time. But I can’t think of a single instance when a great movie has been made from a bad script.
It was instantly clear from the script for W. that the movie would be laughably screwed up. It was obvious from the script for Burn After Reading that this was destined to be 2nd- or 3rd-tier Coen Brothers (which is still better than 1st-tier efforts by other writers — but a disappointment all the same).
The screenplay for Gran Torino is weak. The dialogue lacks authenticity, the attitude is offensive, the situations are contrived, and complex issues are treated simplistically. It’s an insult to Eastwood’s recent output.
I read the screenplay first and my expectations dropped through the floor. After hearing mixed reaction and even some praise from people whose opinions I respect, I was willing to reserve judgment in hopes that Eastwood would somehow salvage this amateurish script from a first-time screenwriter.
After having seen Gran Torino now, I can confirm what I believe and expressed in the first paragraph. Great movies don’t magically blossom out of crap scripts like orchids out of cow piles.
If anything, the movie is worse than the screenplay led me to expect. It’s fatally faithful to the sloppy words on the page. It’s almost as if this is a student film in which somehow Eastwood agreed to appear, out of charity.
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“to bash his performance or the movie based on previously reading the script (which of course will be changed for the movie)”
How faithful is the movie to the script? Word for word, scene for scene, with very infrequent exceptions. In fact Gran Torino seems to be directed by the same novice filmmaker who wrote the script. There’s little or nothing in it that shows a trace of Eastwood’s genius. We now have two movies this year that feel like 2-hour skits cut from Saturday Night Live.
There’s one significant scene missing from the screenplay that didn’t make it to the screen. It’s a phone call from Walt to his son Mitch about a freezer in Walt’s basement. In the movie, that phone call is missing — and its absence actually weakens whatever meaning the freezer sequence is supposed to carry.
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Look, I hate being this way. I don’t like to bring bad news and be a downer. It kills me to disagree with Bebe — since I’ve had a crush on Bebe for months. I wish the movie had been as good as the strangely reticent reviews seem to want it to be.
I was going to drop it. It’s no fun being on this end of my opinion, believe me. But sorry, stevie g. This is what happens when you say I’m ridiculous for daring to form an impression of a movie based on the script. If it’s not on the page, it’s not going to be on the screen. The NBR is absolutely delusional if they think this deserves Best Screenplay honors. It’s the 3rd worst screenplay I’ve read all year, out of dozens. (The other two: W. and Jennifer’s Body.)
I have huge respect and admiration for Clint Eastwood. But he’s not infallible. He’s not the Zeus of Hollywood. This is not the Eastwood of Mystic River or Unforgiven. It’s the Eastwood of Bloodwork and Absolute Power. Gran Torino makes we want to go rent Space Cowboys to rinse the taste of fake blood spittle out of my mouth.
@ Hunter
“…grown-ups get it and the kids don’t. As Raymond Chandler once said, it takes twenty years of life to have anything worth saying about it and another twenty to learn how to say it.”
Crucial street scene showdown from Gran Torino. Three black guys (which in Gran Torino instantly makes them a “gang”) accost a girl on the corner. Walt Kowalski observes from his pickup truck and growls. Actually growls:
WALT: What the hell are you spooks up to?
TALL BLACK GUY: You better get your ass on out of here, honky, while I still let you.
Hunter, maybe “the kids” see this kind of dialogue for what it is: A white kid at his keyboard pretending to know how black guys on the streets of Detroit really speak. Equally inept at imaging how a 70-year-old coot would speak. Seriously. Outside of Shaft, when’s the last time anybody heard the words “spooks’ and “honky” used in an urban confrontation?
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But at least Gran Torino is an equal opportunity insult generator. Walt to his barber (they’re friends):
WALT: I keep hoping you’ll die and they’ll get someone good in here, but you just hang in there, you dumb, Italian-Wop-Dago, you.
BARBER: That’ll be ten dollars, Walt.
WALT: Ten dollars? Jesus Christ, Martin, you keep raising the price. You sure you’re not part Jew?
BARBER: It’s been ten bucks for the last five years and you know it, you thick-skulled, old Pollack son of a bitch.
“you dumb, Italian-Wop-Dago, you.” Somebody sat down and thought that phrase up, typed it out, printed it up. Somebody else read it, and thought: Best Screenplay! Diablo Cody must be breathing a sigh of relief.
You think I’m just cherry-picking, but barely 2 minutes go by without the same kind of exchange. Walt to his construction contractor buddy:
WALT: Hey, Kennedy, you drunken Irish goon. How the hell are you?
[pours himself a cup from the coffee-maker]
KENNEDY: Oh, help yourself there, Walt, you dumb Pollack.
Alright, now you think I’m just making this shit up. Nope, exact quote. These are Walt’s friends, mind you. This is how old guys talk to each other in Gran Torino. Because, you know, showing old farts talking to each other like they regard each other as shithook scumbags will maybe take the sting out of hearing Walt call Asians “zipperheads, fish-heads, gooks, slopes,” and every other cliche trailer-trash vulgarity you can think of.
And the funny part (I’m assuming it’s meant to be funny): Walt is repeatedly pissed off at his earnest young priest when the priest dares to call Walt… “Walt.” The priest calls him “Walt” a half dozen times, and each time Walt tells the priest his name is “Mr. Kowalski” — yeah, because show some fucking respect, right?
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yeah, Hunter, no. It’s not that older people “get” Gran Torino and “the kids” just don’t have the life experience to understand or grasp it. It’s just that some of “the kids” see through the bullshit fakery.
You don’t have to be 70 years old to have life experience. I’ve had the bad luck to be sick enough to cough up blood, too, and I guarantee you after bending over a sink in the bathroom and spitting up bright red chunks of lung, I never perked right up like it was nothing, and the first thing out of my mouth was never, “Now let’s go get us some of that good gook food!”
Another exact quote and contrived scene from the movie. I’ll quit the “bashing” now — if quoting actual lines from the actual movie is what you consider to be bashing.
Now I’m jealous, Ryan.
Somebody else read it, and thought: Best Screenplay!
If you mean the NBR, I doubt they actually read the screenplay; they probably just saw the movie. And any delivery of those lines would have to be an improvement over seeing them on the page… right?
Dang, it sounds atrocious. I’m reading the screenplay now. At least there’s no narrator.
“Now I’m jealous, Ryan.”
ha, Paul. I’m jealous of you. You’re able to sum up the movie in a tight two-sentence description. I rant like I’m off my meds.
You said it perfectly: Gran Torino is an old-school Warner Brothers slice of petrified “social commentary.” It’s a serviceable B-movie and would deserve a respectable grade of B — especially had it been made in 1955, 1965, or even 1975.
It’s a decent enough twist on Billy Jack or Death Wish, Benj. And equally undeserving of awards consideration.
It’s a pastiche of reliable string-pulling heart-tugging moments. And it’s as false as the conceit that a lone ranger can rid a big-city neighborhood of it’s apparently lone gang. (As silly as the idea that those gang members would sit on the front porch waiting for the cops to show up.)
You hit the target with your bullet to the bullseye, Paul.
I carpet bomb the shooting range.
Oh, Lord.
I’m only on scene 6, and I’m already discovering that some of the worst writing isn’t even in the dialogue. Those who see the movie but don’t read the screenplay will miss out on gems like:
“And this is a problem for Walt, because Walt is a full-blown, unrepentant racist.”
Oh, so THAT’S why he calls his Asian neighbors “swamp rats” in the very next line of dialogue. Thanks for clearing that up Nick!
I love stuff like this, and the Twilight and Eragon books. It’s so encouraging for an aspiring writer. Because if writing like that can turn into an international sensation, what’s stopping the rest of us?
“…if writing like that can turn into an international sensation, what’s stopping the rest of us?”
Yes! Utterly inspirational, int it?
Just wait till you see Walt transform from an ugly racist into a cuddly racist in a carefully explored character arc — between page 39 and page 39.
Utterly inspirational, yeah?
You bet. Every time I feel bogged down with my novel I read the first page of Eragon and picture Christopher Paolini swimming in his money vault. Then off I go!
Paolini followed a different path.
He read “How to Write a Really Damned Good Novel” by Dr. Faust (foreword by Mephistopheles)
Aw, Nick Schenk defined “wigger” for us on page 35! So helpful.
ETA: Oh crap. Danger from M$B has returned to haunt me in the form of Trey.
@ ryan,
have you ever read the script for “grosse pointe blanke” because that is one of my favorite movies (personal preference i know) and by far one of the worst screenplays i have ever read. In fact i could not believe that it was even the same movie. all im asking is are you sure that you read the final script that was going to be shown on the screen…(edit…i didnt read your later post that you have seen the movie…Was it the same script???) im sure you know that annie hall was a 180 page script that was a three hour mess before woody allen got in the editing room. thats why im saying that while a script may suck, in the end its the director that eventually makes all the decisions (again, i know you know this, im not trying to be condescending and like tell you things you already know) about what is filmed, what rewrites are needed and how the films come out of the editing room
however, if you have seen the movie…and you went in with an open mind and didnt like it, well thats that i guess…im gonna see it when i can and ill see for myself and ill either like it or dislike it too
From the New York Times article about Clint and Gran Torino:
“He didn’t change a word,” Mr. Schenk said. “That never happens.”
That’s in reference to the screenplay, of course.
PS. Ryan, thanks for the kind words, but that not why I was jealous about #51.
Thanks for the NYTimes backup, Paul. Always good to have some actual facts infiltrate all the opinionating.
That confirms what I was feeling in comment #51, stevie g:
“How faithful is the movie to the script? Word for word, scene for scene, with very infrequent exceptions.”
Another word that appeared a couple of times in the script but wasn’t in the movie (as far as recall) was “faggy” — somehow I guess that was deemed too weird-sounding coming out of Walt’s mouth. (Though he has no trouble with telling a guy he’s a “pussy,” again and again. “pussy” in Walt’s universe: anyone who doesn’t care a pistol around with him in case of random conflicts.)
The weirdly off-key thing is another gripe I have with the script. The angelic young priest is the model of pious decorum — except for when he spices up his language with multiple uses of “Jesus Christ” (and not followed by Amen, either.)
On the subject of JC, Walt reigns in his blasphemy by saying “Christ All Friday” — like I guess that’s supposed to sound eucharistically euphemistic, maybe? But in the same breath he says, “Fuck me!”
See, I don’t know anybody who uses both those terms. They seem to be generations apart in in eras of salty slang. Do you guys know anybody over 75 who says, “Fuck me!” ? (as an expression of frustration.)
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The off-key aspects are not confined to the cuss words. I don’t have any problem with rough language, when it feels organic to the character. {Note to Nick Schenk: See a few Scorsese or Tarantino movies for lessons in how to do it right.)
Another jarring example of tone-deaf writing is when the priest stands before his congregation and quotes Walt:
wink wink, nudge nudge, ahaha, get it, folks? Religion is superstition! There is no eternity! Old Walt sure nailed me to the cross on that one! har-dee-har-har!
What kind of priest would tell that story in a tone of warm fondness to his flock? The kind of priest who only exists as a foil for gruff heroics of the coarsest sort.
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[ok, Paul. Now I can have a really pleasant afternoon imaging all kinds of wrong reasons why you said you were jealous.]
Now watch AFI name Gran Torino one of its Movies of the Year… doh!
Ryan, as always, I enjoy your prose very much, but to be frank, you avoided the thrust of my point, which was, that although I am sorry you were seriously ill at some point, was that sheer longevity and profound and continuing loss and grief garners an emotional power via experience that youth simply cannot quantify; it is this which older people respond to, and you diminish that experience of life and its consequent ramifications by reduction to “old guys call folks names so they are better off dead.” You are simply too smart to be called naive, but you are certainly young enough to be called callow when you say things like this. With respect, seek not to judge all hearts and minds by the immature measure of your own.
In Ryan’s defense, I have also read the screenplay and, if there are virtually no deviations from it in the film as Schenk states, then I can not see how Eastwood could have produced a competent film (let alone a masterpiece). If he has, he is a miracle worker, but I sincerely doubt it.
I would even go as far as to call the screenplay, despite its superficially anti-racist position, one of the most racist scripts that I have read in quite a while. Is it just me or is Walt the only three dimensional character in this film (and I think that statement is very generous towards Schenk) who isn’t a complete caricature? And is there a racial stereotype or epithet that isn’t expressed by Walt in the film? Schenk went hog wild with outdated slurs in the script (as if it wasn’t already evident 100 pages into the script that Walt was a bigot). The film should be retitled “Walt the Lovable Bigot” (ain’t he cute…). The suspension of disbelief required to accept Sue and Tao’s love for an unrepentant bigot (who delivers one to two racial slurs per page) is virtually impossible.
Ryan has already given a few samples of Schenk’s screenplay, but some other instances are just as cringe worthy. For example, within an escalating confrontation scene with Sue, an anonymous “Tall Black Guy” utters the following…
TALL BLACK GUY
This Oriental yummy for me? Don’t
worry, I’ll take good care of her.
[...]
TALL BLACK GUY
You should keep your bitch on a
leash, put a choke chain on this
whore and yank.
By giving you fragments, I am actually sparing you from the sheer awfulness of this scene, but I think “Oriental yummy” makes my case rather well. In my opinion, the love directed towards the film’s narrative seems to be emanating from a misguided, inexplicable, and warped form of nostalgia for the infallible, patriarchal, and hetero-masculine white man of yesteryear (as embodied by Walt, the lovable bigot with a personal mission to man up any of us “pussies”).
I just don’t get it.
“old guys call folks names so they are better off dead.” You are simply too smart to be called naive, but you are certainly young enough to be called callow when you say things like this.
If I’d said such a callow thing, I’d take my lumps, Hunter, but you’re reducing some complex feelings to the bluntest terms and robbing them of any real meaning except for shock value — which is exactly what the script for Gran Torino does.
What I said was I’m bored with trying to understand people who think of Asians as gooks. I said:
“The country will be a better place when those people stop trying to save us and teach us lessons. It’ll be a greater country when those people go away.
Thanks for the props to the prose, but as long as we’re paraphrasing me, can I take a shot at it?
The country will be better off when the oldest generation that clings to its stubborn prejudice is gone.
Agree with me or not, but I stand by that feeling. Not everybody over 55 has failed to keep up with changes in society but many are still “stuck in the 50’s” (as Walt’s son says about his father in the movie) — those people are holding this country back. If they haven’t learned in 50 years, the movies expects us to believe a guy who’s held onto his prejudice for 5 decades will change in a single day — if he can only meet some nice Asians who can overlook the fact that he’s calling them animals to their faces. In fact, he calls them “barbarians.”
(When you see the movie, watch for the moment when Walt finally breaks down and decides to mingle with his neighbors. The movie gives no other reason for this overnight transformation except that he ran out of Pabst Blue Ribbon in his cooler, and there’s free beer and free “gook food” next door. Another thing that rings false — that an octogenarian would dive right in to a feast of exotic Hmong food.)
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I have no doubt that older people can relate to a lifetime of grief and loss. But more to the point, old people relate to old people. The only demographic that voted over 50% for McCain were white people over 55. Do we kid ourselves that they were responding to a lifetime of McCain pain? Or can we agree that prejudice was a significant deciding factor among those people?
When those people are no longer voting, we won’t have to feel anxiety that a black man can’t get elected in America, and when the older generation of prejudice dies off maybe discriminatory measures like Prop 8 won’t pass.
Millions of older people deal with changes in society, but I’ll say it again, Hunter: we’ll have a better country when those who can’t accept change go away.
I’m curious to see how many bigoted 70-year-olds choose the same path to redemption that Walt takes in the movie. If Gran Torino doesn’t teach those people anything, then what lesson is the film supposed to carry?
It’s a fake message that says, “See the old guy who thinks other races are animals? Be nice to him, so he’ll save you from the worst of your own people someday.”
The overriding metaphor and true historical parallel of Gran Torino, as I see it: The bullying force of an American arsenal is thrust into the middle of conflicting factions of an Asian community. The display of American force not only fails to solve the problem, it causes the war to escalate. As consequence, the people Walt thinks he’s helping suffer horribly. Then, too late, he realizes how badly he’s fucked things up. Sound familiar?
The historical parallel ends there and veers off into a dreamland resolution — because the movie wraps up with Sgt. America as the hero, and all the evil is eradicated (*poof!*) and the good Asian people are forever in the debt of the big American asskicker. Sound a little too tidy?
Color chosen to emphasize the Gran Torino’s symbolism?
Tank Green.
Ryan, back atcha. It’s ok if we disagree. You’re still teh greatness! xxoo
The only demographic that voted over 50% for McCain were white people over 55. Do we kid ourselves that they were responding to a lifetime of McCain pain? Or can we agree that prejudice was a significant deciding factor among those people?
I’m sure that was a factor for some, sadly, but I’d argue that McCain’s age was more important. The old folks identified with him.
Wow, it’s kind of astounding a bunch of internet movie nerds are bashing the movie based on the script. I have seen the movie. It is easily the best Eastwood movie I have ever seen. People who are calling the movie racist do not understand the hidden meaning behind it all. You can’t base the character from a few lame lines. You have to see the whole story unfold, watch the surprise ending, and understand the morality of it all. It is truly an inspirational piece of work.
From one internet nerd to another:
I’ve never looked at the script and I still say the film is a derivative B-movie that pales in comparison to the best TV series and movies dealing with this theme. I watched the movie as a fan of Eastwood’s previous work and if this film is better than Unforgiven and The Bridges of Madison County, then those two must really suck. (And they don’t.)
@Tshirts
I’ve read the script and seen the movie. The script is awful but it’s better than the movie — because at least I had hopes that the script might be salvageable. The movie dashed those hopes.
“You can’t base the character from a few lame lines.”
Without exaggeration, 95% of the lines are lame.
Easily 19 out of every 20 lines are lame.
“You have to see the whole story unfold,” and unravel
“watch the surprise ending,” coming from a mile away
“and understand the morality of it all.”
Namely: Helpless little brown people are doomed without the redemptive sacrifice of bigoted old white guys.
Words are not communication … words are just one of a number of communication vehicles. The trick is to figure out what Eastwood’s words really mean, and let me tell you, what they mean for us old white guys is a lot different than what they mean for so many others.
Is Walt Kowalski a racist? If only you take him superficially. Racism is a term that has been over-used so promiscuously that it’s lost any common meaning. The film is an effort to bring us back to a common definition iof what racism is … and isn’t. Too bad so many are blind and can’t see that.
This movie was hilarious. It was a complete disgrace to the Hmong culture. I find it ridiculous that there were ACTUAL Hmong people in this movie and that there were Hmong consultants on set yet a majority of the information about our culture was incorrect. When they were doing the ceremony, who honestly does it at someone elses house but their own and our relatives do not bring their own food, we go to these things to help cook and eat. Also, we all know that if a Hmong boy had gotten into trouble for trying to steal a car and was “saved” by anyone else, the neighborhood would not likely start bringing him presents of sorts. Lastly, no one goes to a funeral dressed in Hmong clothes unless the person who passed away is Hmong and wearing those clothes themselves. To say the least, now everyone who is stupid enough to believe preconceived notions will think that all Hmongs belong to gangs, are rude to others, that the “girls go to college and the boys go to jail”, and rape their own cousins. Come ON people. Seriously. I hope that just because you see it in a movie, you don’t believe it all.
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