Thoughts on a Movie No.2

Here is another movie review of the film "Gran Torino" starring and directed by Clint Eastwood. Again if you have no motivation to see this movie I will sum it up like I did with "Slumdog", in a few sentences. If you would like to see this movie, skip the part that says "Spoiler Alert" and go to "Synopsis".

Spoiler Alert!
A racist old bastard is the only white guy left in an impoverished Detroit neighborhood (like there are places that aren't impoverished in Det.). A nice South East Asian family moves in next door, he hates them at first but later takes a smart, good-hearted, but socially retarded teen under his wing. A gang begins to terrorize them, Eastwood starts war with the gang, loses the war but its okay, because they are all going to jail... And he is dying anyway... And he hates life... And now the family is safe.

Synopsis:
The film is basically a highlight reel of "Willy" (Eastwood), making out-dated racial comments about every different ethnicity on this planet. He's a Korean war veteran, who has a strong distaste for Asian-Americans. The neighborhood is falling down around him, gangs, no work, etc. Willy's new neighbors are good people but the gang leader cousin keeps trying to recruit the families teenage son. When the son refuses, they open up an all out Jihad on these poor folks. Over time Willy, becomes friendly with the family and feels the need to protect them at all costs. The thing that has bugged me in a couple of movies I've seen recently is these old-timers; Eastwood, Pacino, De Niro, walking around beating the crap out of 18-25 year old, gangsters. Eastwood especially, there is one scene where he is freaking out breaking doors and windows in his house, just looks funny more than anything. All in all, it was okay, not really sure why they called the film "Gran Torino" though. I think a better name would have been "The Old Mean Racist". I mean he has an old 73 Torino, and it plays a small role. My feeling is, the car is a metaphor for Eastwood's character.

This movie shakes out at a 3

Which in case you don't remember means, "eh... tolerable, could be better"