Gran Torino: The Movie

Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino is a delight. It flashes humor in parts while it seriously tells the story of salvation of an American Hmong family.

Eastwood is a retired Ford Motor Company worker and a decorated veteran of the Korean War living in a Hmong neighborhood that was created by white flight. His Korean War experiences have ignited a spirit of distrust for Asians. But now, he must live with them as neighbors. Eastwood's days as a Ford mechanic are his blessings. But as an autoworker retiree, his days are less that enjoyable for he has not learned to engage life as a retiree.

Having recently buried his wife, Eastwood is left alone despite having two sons and their family living near him. Knowing of his lone wolf nature, his constant battles with war ghosts, and his struggle with retirement; his wife elicited the parish priest to promise to get the proud Ford retiree to renew his spirit through a confession of his sins.

The Gran Torino story is a remake of Jesus' sacrifice of his life to return humanity to an honored position with God. Eastwood plays a not-so-perfect Jesus character that makes a sacrifice in order that a Hmong family can freely enjoy its American life. Of course he works some local miracles to raise a teenaged Hmong boy from one of weakness and isolation in his American life to a full life in American culture. The boy is transformed but not freed from the plans of a neighborhood prince of evil.

The Calvary act was astutely prepared by the early introduction of Eastwood's cigarette lighter bearing his Korean combat division insignia. It becomes the means through which Eastwood is introduced to his slow demise from lung cancer - evoked by his heavy smoking. By contrast, it is also the means through which this tormented war hero initiates the events leading to his sacrifice. This sacrifice frees the Hmong family from the clutches of the prince of neighborhood evil and gives it an opportunity to enjoy the fullness of the American experience with an awareness of how to fight life's struggles in their new homeland.

The spiritual leaders of Jesus' day were his adversaries. They preached what thy seldom practiced. In Gran Torino, the parish spiritual leader's closing soliloquy suggests he has learned something from Eastwood about living in the real world, -- something that transcends book knowledge and orthodox traditions. Wouldn't that be nice?

An entertaining movie!