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Gran Torino

Movie Grade: A

DVD Features Grade: C

Overall Grade: B+

I will be the first to tell you that my expectations going into this film were down around my ankles. There was something about the marketing campaign for this movie that just felt tired to me, as though this film had run out of steam long before reaching the movie theater. Others found the campy quality of the ads endearing, even unintentionally funny, and the massive box office take tells the rest of the story. Myself, I had no interest in seeing a haggard Clint Eastwood growling at Asians to "get off my lawn." I had also no interest in watching him shoot them, as I assumed he probably would, as no Eastwood movie would be complete without some form of physical or mental violence occurring to many, if not all of the characters. I put the disc in the player, gritted my teeth, and prepared for the worst.

The result was a truly wonderful film. I stand corrected, I was wrong to doubt him. Clint Eastwood has lost none of his moviemaking prowess through the years. If anything his efforts are comparable to the aging effects of fine wine. Gran Torino may very well be his best work to date, and the only movie he's made that I would consider revisiting. Due to the powerfully traumatic nature of his past work (see Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby) his movies can be a tough pill to swallow, something you're glad you saw but really don't need to go through again. Gran Torino is different, an experience that will undeniably improve with age, and a film with so many small moments and hidden gems that you could sit on your couch and rewind whole sections over and over again marveling at how masterfully they are constructed.

To give all the credit to Eastwood, however, would undermine a terrific script and a cast who manage to steal scenes right out from under their director. Special mention goes to the actor who played Tao, as he spends the most time opposite Eastwood and is therefore under the most scrutiny. Honestly and believably befriending Dirty Harry when you're only in your teens and have skin color that would lend itself to becoming the butt of his racist remarks is no mean feat, and he passes the test with flying colors. It's a good thing too, because if everyone else wasn't on top of their game, you get the feeling that Eastwood's performance would tear right through each and every one of them and leave a dispassionate and self-indulgent film in its wake. His storytelling ability, as well as his deliberate sense of pacing, leaves the film ending exactly when it has begun to wear out its welcome. You never feel anything other than what he

intends for you to feel, and a big part of the success of the film is its lack of a pervasive musical score. When music does enter a scene, it does so for a very specific reason, and holds all the more power because of it. I hope, for the sake of the film world as a whole, that Eastwood doesn't stop making movies anytime soon, because honestly, who else would you want to teach all the young punks a thing or two about how to make brilliant cinema?

The Extras:

Here's where the difference between a DVD and seeing a film in the theaters has an effect on the overall quality of the package. 2 featurettes is not uncommon for a bare-bones release, if they had something to do with the movie itself. Here, both featurettes discuss a part of the movie I found the least interesting, the 1972 Gran Torino as a car, and include plenty of cast interview clips that would probably have made for a great documentary about the film. Instead they throw in some guy who claims to be a car expert and talk about what their dream cars are and what sort of person would spend hours polishing their vehicles. What does any of that have to do with the film? Well there's about 45 seconds total where we see either Eastwood or another character cleaning/polishing the titular vehicle behind the movie's title. That's it. Yet there are two featurettes about old cars and nothing about the actual film. No deleted scenes, no commentary, and nothing about how this great movie came to be. It's really depressing, unless all you're interested in is having a copy of the movie itself, in which case this will have to do.

Movie Grade: A

DVD Features Grade: C

Overall Grade: B+