Move review of Gran Torino

Well.  Gran Torino has Clint Eastwood as an old man, a retired auto worker, who is grumpy and racist and swears a lot.  Actually, a lot of people in the movie swear a lot.

He remembers when his neighborhood used to be an ethnically-Polish, working-class neighborhood. But, over the years everyone that he knew has either moved away or died -- so the neighborhood is now mostly Latinos, Cambodians, and other ethnic groups.

And, he has a classic car in his garage -- a Gran Torino (which I'd never heard of, but I'm not "into" cars) -- which is an object of desire of some local gang members, as well as his estranged sons, and his greedy self-centered granddaughter.


Hm.  I'm not sure how much of the actual plot I can describe without giving it away.

How about this:  a co-worker told me he didn't like it.  And I watched the DVD "Special Features" first, which didn't inspire me to see the movie.  But after I watched the first five minutes, I was hooked.

There's some funny bits, some sad bit, some very grim bits -- and the ending in plausible and is consistent with what went before -- and actually pretty clever.


A lot of swearing, racist name-calling, and a fair amount of violence.  But it was still a good movie.

Not one for the kiddies.  Or if you're already bummed.


--GG