MOVIE REVIEW: Gran Torino

Yesterday I had the distinct pleasure of attending the motion picture film Gran Torino, starring a well-preserved Clint Eastwood spouting jarringly repugnant racist invective with frighteningly casual frequency. The response of the Ohio audience sharing the theater with me was rather disconcerting. They laughed as if "gook" or "spook" were the punchline to all of their favorite jokes. I'm making the assumption that the laughter was a nervous response to something that should otherwise be held as unacceptable. (Though you know what they say about assumptions.) Racial insensitivity aside, Gran Torino is far from the violent revenge flick it has been billing itself as in the trailers. Very far from it, in fact. Vendetta fans be warned! Eastwood never even fires a weapon. This fact, ladies and gentlemen, is what makes Gran Torino such an acceptable film, in spite of Eastwood's (as crusty Korean war vet Walt Kowalski) painfully flippant use of nearly ever racial slur I've ever heard (he even revives the classic anti-Caucasoid jeer 'ofay' which I am now on a mission to reclaim for my people). No, rather than being a violence-packed revenge tale Gran Torino is a story of redemption. I won't spoil the film and simply urge you to go see the film that may be Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood's last starring role. The film is writer Nick Schenk's first actualized screenplay and, in my estimation, he has earned himself license for at least one more flick.