BEFORE: The war-movie chain is over, but the Eastwood train rolls on - just in time to give a big 81st birthday SHOUT-out to Clint, who's inspired his third chain in the countdown, thanks to spaghetti westerns and Dirty Harry/prison films.
THE PLOT: Disgruntled Korean War vet Walt Kowalski sets out to reform his neighbor, a young Hmong teenager, who tried to steal Kowalski's prized possession: his 1972 Gran Torino.
AFTER: In the ongoing debate between character and action (and I don't know why there's occasionally confusion between WHO someone is and WHAT they do), along comes a movie that says, "Well, why can't we have BOTH?" A Korean war veteran who has to live next door to a Korean family, well, that's already a tasty little conflict. Throw in a recently-deceased wife, his own failing health, two estranged sons, a priest making repeated house calls, and a city full of gang members, and it's a perfect breeding ground for a curmudgeon.
Kowalski's like the last holdout from a simpler time, when the neighborhood wasn't falling apart or filling up with foreigners, when Asians were "the enemy" and men weren't asked to raise or show affection to their children or talk about their feelings. When it was OK to toss around a few racial stereotypes, and people affectionately (?) called each other "Mick" or "Polack" or "Dago".
When the Korean gang tries to initiate the neighbor boy by making him steal Kowalski's prize 1972 Gran Torino, it sets off a chain of events with the older man taking the boy under his wing, teaching him about home repairs, how to polish a car, and how to land a date. Sort of like "The Karate Kid" in reverse, minus all that karate.
In the meantime, Kowalski learns, to his surprise, that he gets along with the Korean family better than his own, that he likes their food and their way of insulting each other. He can't help but make his sons feel like they've never measured up or done anything right - just like a Korean grandmother would.
So the character is a great one, then we've got the action, which contains plot points I won't reveal here - but I will say it's a battle between Kowalski and the Korean gang over the soul of Thao, the neighbor boy. And in a way, it's a battle for his own soul, as revealed in his conversations with the young priest. It reveals a look inside the head of a veteran, someone who might still be tortured by the acts he was made to commit decades ago.
Turns out there's a lot of meat on these old bones.
NITPICK POINT: As the violence escalates (as it tends to do in these situations) how come no one ever decides to go to the police? Do the Hmong people have a track record for not reporting crimes, or is that just a convenient way of advancing the conflict?
That's going to wrap up another month - with 122 movies to go until I take a break in mid-October. I've made pretty good progress this year, in 151 days I was able to reduce the list from 338 to 289, a drop of 49. So for every movie I watched in 2011, I must have added another two. But in 365 days last year I only reduced the list by 72, which meant for every film I watched, I added another four. If I can get the list down close to 200 by October, I'll be happy.
Also starring Bee Vang, Ahney Her, Brian Howe, Christopher Carley and John Carroll Lynch.
RATING: 6 out of 10 roofing hammers
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