Monday, Jan. 12, 2009

Eastwood beats up bigotry in 'Gran Torino'

By Edward Robertson, atomictown.com

You know the absolute best part about being young?

No, even better than underage drinking. Cooler yet than possessing the still-intact delusion you can grow up to be anything you want to be. More fun -- hard as it may sound to believe -- than driving poorly and texting your friends during movies. No, the absolute best part about being young is the knowledge that, whatever crazy social beliefs adults hold right now, they'll turn out to be wrong.

It happened with slavery, and then a few years later (OK, like a 100) it happened with segregation. It's happening now with gay rights. Once the world moves on far enough, bigotry that was once common, such as the kind held by Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, is more baffling than offensive. And so what if the radical, progressive beliefs you held when you were young end up looking ridiculous and backwards when you're old? Get old enough and you possess the most devastating anti-youth weapon of them all: the ability to subject everyone in hearing range to ceaseless stories drawn from a lifetime of experience.

After the death of his wife, scowling, blunt-tongued Korean War vet Eastwood is hardly alone: his son is after him to think about moving out of the ghetto, and the local priest keeps dogging him to come to confession.

Eastwood would sooner punch them both out than do what they want. He's the kind of man who would save introverted neighbor kid Bee Vang from a gang brawl, then yell at Vang to get off his lawn.

But to the neighbors, he's a hero. And though Vang earlier tried to steal Eastwood's car -- not to mention committing the even more unforgivable crime of being Asian -- Eastwood starts to warm to him. Problem is, that gang's still out there, and they're not about to forget the way they've been humiliated.

Gran Torino is going to get a lot of credit for being bracingly rough and un-PC. No doubts there: it's got more ethnic slurs than were used in the whole of World Wars I, II, and IX. Eastwood (who also directed) plays a House-like character who's as fascinating as he is repulsive. The secret, of course, is it just takes a while to get to know him -- but once you have, it's worth all the effort.

The other secret is he's crazy hilarious. There are rules about getting away with offensive material, and the rule is that if it's funny, there are no rules. Writer Nick Schenk's offhandedly cruel dialogue is a constant surprise, and though Eastwood's scowling and growling could easily veer into cartoonish, geriatric Dirty Harry territory, he's a good enough actor that it rarely turns that way.

The dramatic side walks a similar line. Crusty old dudes having their hard hearts cracked by good-natured kids is older than God's dad and cheesier than a walking cheesemonster. (They're more common than you'd think.) Eastwood's unrepentant bigotry gives the movie the chance to evade the sap; a gimmick-free, naturalistic friend- and mentorship between him and Vang gives it some real depth.

Their relationship unfolds so well that it's a while before I realized nothing else was going on. The gang had disappeared, and with it half the reason their story was being told. On a scene-by-scene basis, it's fine. As a whole, it could have used a couple cuts.

As for the uneven performances of its younger cast, is that because they still have a few things to learn about acting, or were they just doing a dead-on job as awkward teenagers? Beats the hell out of me; as a man of impeccable social skills and +18 charisma, I have no insight into what it's like to ever be less than Hollywood perfect. Let's just say it was a minor distraction.

That's a small complaint in the face of all that salty dialogue, the unconventional takes on conventional characters, and the gruff but earned emotion. After a long stretch of unexceptional movies, Gran Torino is a good start to the year.

Grade: B+