Gran Torino

*Spoiler warning* This review gives away the ending of the film as well as crucial plot points and details. Please do not read any further if you still plan on seeing the film.
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I did something tonight which I haven't done in months: went to the movies. I had a free night off work, and with nothing else to do, headed over to a little bargain theatre to see the new Clint Eastwood movie, Gran Torino. It was funny, because it's been so long since I've been to a "mainstream" movie theatre (easily three or four years now) that I'd forgotten just what the experience can be like. I got there about five minutes before the film started, and was surprised to see the line wrapped halfway around the building outside (they have an old fashioned box office in the front of the theatre where you buy the tickets before heading inside). Once inside the theatre, the film was just starting, so it was already dark, and it appeared that every seat in the house was filled, and I had to wait a minute or two before I finally spotted one free seat down at the front of the theatre. The really funny part is that I was seated next to a couple on a date, and I for a moment I felt very awkward sitting right down next to them, as if I was intruding. It goes to show how much we (well, myself, at least) have become so adjusted to the home viewing experience, to the point where going out to a movie seems almost awkward.

The film itself started out as a typical Eastwood/"Dirty Harry" type film. He plays a Korean war veteran whose wife has just died, and whose busy, middle-class children have no time for him. What was interesting is that Eastwood portrayed the character as a very unlikable type, at least by conventional standards, yet also came across as a far more honest character than we usually see in Hollywood films. His character is an "equal opportunity offender" as Jackie Mason would say, spouting off racial slurs and insults to everyone who crosses his path. He develops a friendship with an Asian family living next door who is being terrorized by gangsters, and there are some fun "Dirty Harry"-type encounters between Eastwood's character and the gang members.

However, I was really surprised by the ending. "Spoiler warning": The whole film has set up the theme of revenge and vengeance, and after the daughter next door is raped by the gang members, Eastwood's character goes about getting ready to "even the score". Just when you think he's going to blow away the gang members in a bloody finish, he instead allows himself to be shot to death in full view of the neighbors, so that there are witnesses who can put the gang members away in jail.

On the one hand, the ending is a departure from the usual "shoot 'em up" bloodbaths that the Dirty Harry films, and countless imitations, would have ended with. On the other hand, I couldn't help but feel that it violated all the rules the film had set up for itself up to that point. Eastwood's character even dies in a symbolic, cross-like position to really drive the point home that he's "died" for this family. My initial impression after seeing this is that it's just as sappy and dishonest as anything Spielberg would have done. Aside from the rather flimsy premise (he's taking an awfully big chance that his murder will indeed put these gangsters away for life and bring peace for the family), it struck me as being close to near-parody; this noble war veteran who's just too good for this world, with the blatant comparison to Jesus yet.

The final scene, where it turns out that Eastwood, in his will, has left his prized Gran Torino to the Asian boy next door whom he has befriended, is just absurd. Up to that point, the scenes between Eastwood and the boy had a refreshingly honest and even amusing quality to them, but in light of the ending, just seem cloying and manipulative in retrospect. If Eastwood was trying to make a grand point, it was certainly lost at the end, when his death has seemingly had little impact beyond just granting the boy a really cool set of wheels to cruise around in.

I have to say, it wasn't a bad film at all up to that point. I just wish Eastwood hadn't taken the cloying, sentimental way out at the end, and had remained true to the original premise which made the film interesting in the first place.

Then again, can we really expect any different from Hollywood? ;)

I'm Still Here...

I wanted to keep readers updated on why I haven't posted in several weeks. First it was the holidays, and then it was the combined confusion of preparing college applications for graduate school, and finishing the new film I'm working on.

Well, the applications are in the mail, and the film is finished. Titled "Final Notice", expect to look for it on YouTube as well as DailyMotion within the next week. I'm just having a couple test viewings just to fine-tune anything, then it'll be up for screening online.

I will return to the regular posts here. I'm in the process of writing a bit on one of my newest "favorite" films, "Inland Empire", directed by David Lynch. Lynch, of course, is one of the few filmmakers working today whose work inspires and influences me as much as that of past masters like Bergman or Fellini. Lynch's most recent film (it actually came out in 2007, but I just caught up with it on DVD) is a phenomenally ambitious undertaking, shot entirely on DV (he claims he's done with celluloid film at this point. Having worked on both formats myself, I can certainly see why!)

I'll prepare a few thoughts on the film, and look forward to returning to my regular correspondence with the readers of this blog.