Gran Torino: Shovin' it into overdrive.

I've had this film from Netflix for about a month now, maybe more, and I kept picking up the disc, considering putting it in, and then ultimately setting it back down, 'cause I figured it'd be pretty heavy. And I'm not always in the mood for that. You know how it is: sometimes you want Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, and sometimes you want the Spongebob Squarepants Movie. I can't believe I just typed Spongebob Squarepants. But never you mind this little digression. The point is that I finally sat down to watch Gran Torino, and I was surprised. Maybe because I was ready for heavy, I didn't feel turned off by it's weight. But, no, because it's not weight that gives me pause, it's melodrama. It's a skill-less manipulation of emotion that totally pisses me off, even as it works.

But here, Clint Eastwood (the very name is mythic) just tells a story. He makes us feel welcome and communicates with us, and so when things turn dark, and they do, we don't feel manipulated at all. We feel like we were in the same place, witnessing the same events, and we were not so much taken to this point, as journeyed along next to everyone else. It's really pretty amazing how he does that.

I've only seen one other film by Eastwood (seriously, how can you type that without feeling like you're in Hoyo de Manzanares), but what was very clear to me in Gran Torino was how no-nonsense a filmmaker he is. Right from the start there's just no fat on the scenes. At first it seemed corny--having a kid act disrespectful in a church and then immediately cutting to Eastwood sneering and growling in displeasure--I figured I had the entire film's theme (that of youth culture not seeing eye-to-eye with the strong elderly figures of our past) all figured out within a few seconds, and I was all geared up to see the film as cool, but not good. But after a few more scenes I realized that subtlety isn't interesting to Eastwood in the same way as what I've come to expect from modern film making. He wants us to understand the scenes, and feel the arc of the story slowly building, and forget all that other shit. Not that he is technique-less, simply that Eastwood seems freed from many other filmmakers' need to stylistically innovate all the time. The style of the story itself, and the straightforwardness of all the actors allows the film to just be exposed in front of us. It reminded me of On The Waterfront in how it had a few honest characters in a small area saying honest things to one another. It was very simple. But, like any good fable, deeply complicated. Like the character he played, Eastwood's film is very open about being angry. And that's going to be boring to little kids, but profoundly captivating to most everyone else.

All of this made for the moment, when things turned dark later on in the film, where I was genuinely shocked and scared and hurt, and found myself, eyes stinging, shaking my head, and both Clint and I were murmuring "no, no, no...". And I'm sorry if that alone spoils anything, but I bring it up to illustrate just how absorbed I was by this relatively casual movie. That there were long sequences of genuinely nice things happening, and that those sequences were genuinely a lot of fun to watch, really speaks of how little one has to do when one has good material, and still make solid, powerful, classic art.

Apparently there were rumors that this was the last Dirty Harry movie, which I think is perfect. The setting and subject matter feels very much like the aging badass waned to take on a different kind of violence, in a different setting. Wanted to deal with things that to him seemed very modern. He still connects it very strongly to the past, and makes the violence simmer within the pasts and potentials of these people, but it does so in the suburbs, in middle-America. A place that most old men are used to being safe and simple. For Eastwood to deal so directly with something that's a lot harder to pinpoint than any of the Dirty Harry stories shows how much of a badass he really is.

Extra points for Norm Gunderson himself, John Carroll Lynch.