Gran Torino was made in 2008 and stars Clint Eastwood who also directed the film. He plays Walt Kowalski, a Korean War Vet who is a cantankerous, bigoted old, retired auto worker who lives in an aging neighborhood in Detroit that’s certainly seen better days.
The movie begins with a funeral at a Catholic church, and we soon find out that it’s Walt’s
wife’s funeral and Walt is doing the most Clint Eastwoody thing you can do – He is standing by the casket of his dead wife looking ticked off. As he surveys the room, you meet his two sons and his grandkids and you get the idea that he has no real relationship with either and is disgusted by his grandkids. His grand-daughter comes to the funeral in a belly shirt, and nose ring and has no desire to be there whatsoever, and the look on Walt’s face tells you everything you need to know about it.
After the funeral, back at Walt’s house, we learn that he was a Korean War Vet, because we see his grandkids rummaging through an old chess with pictures and metals and such, and we see a little more interaction with his family – which is strained at best. They try and talk to him and he just grimaces in disappointment and disgust.
Stepping outside on front porch to get some fresh air, Walt sees his new neighbors moving in, a large Hmong family, which is an indigenous group to the mountain villages of southeast Asia. And you can tell by the look on his face and all the racial slurs that Walt is none too happy about it. Then we meet the Catholic priest from his wife’s funeral and Walt is none too happy about seeing him…He says he is thankful for everything that he for his wife but now that she is dead he sees no need for the priest to keep coming around.
Walt is an angry man, pissed off at the world…his wife is dead, he is alienated from his kids, the country he loves has completely changed, the house he has lived in his whole life that was once a white middle class community, is now a rundown neighborhood filled with immigrants. He was married to the same woman his whole life, worked at the same factory his whole life, and lived in the same house his whole life – everything around him has changed, and not for the better and he isn’t happy about it. He isn’t happy about anything. He spends most of his time on the front porch drinking PBR with his old dog waiting to die.
Walt is a hard man, but he exists in a hard world…Detroit is no place for the faint of heart, and you get the impression that things could pop off at any minute with all the gangs and gang violence in the area…one such gang was a Hmong gang that tries to recruit Walt’s new neighbor who is a teenage boy named, Thao. Thao’s initiation into the gang is to steal Walt’s 1972 Gran Torino. It didn’t end well Thao’s but before Walt can shoot him he trips over something in his garage and Thao makes a break for it realizing the gang life is not for him.
However, the gang is relentless in their pursuit of him and a couple days later the gang tries to carry him off his front yard and take him with them…Thao’s family tries to intervene and a fight breaks…Walt comes to the rescue – not to rescue Thao or his family from the gang, but to rescue his yard…the fight spilled over into his yard – which he was none too happy about and puts his gun in the faces Hmong gang members and has every intention of using it – they back down and ride off…It’s here that he finds out that it was actually Thao that tried to steal his Gran Torino nights before…after Thao apologizes for trying to steal it.
Walt becomes a bit a hero to the Hmong community for standing up to the gang, and Thao’s mom and sister bring Thao over to Walt’s house to work off the debt of shaming his family for trying to steal Walt’s car…Walt initially says no – offering to kill Thao if he ever sees him on this property – Walt hasn’t forgotten about his car. But the women are persistent and Walt concedes.
Thao goes over to Walt’s house every morning for a couple of weeks, and Walt puts him work cleaning up the rundown neighborhood houses. Through this process, the two develop a relationship. Thao is a good kid but he is soft, and Walt realizes this kid has no hope of surviving this world. He has no father there to show him the way. All the women in his life are strong and the only real male presence to speak of in the Hmong community are the gangs…As Thao’s sister said to Walt earlier in the film, that when the Hmong immigrants come over the girls go to college and the boys go to prison.
Over time, Walt seems to genuinely care for Thao, in the most Clint Eastwoody way possible – by busting his balls and constantly making racial slurs – in fact, I think he calls him toad instead of Thao through the whole movie. Walt teaches Thao how to work on things around the house, brings him into a barber shop and teaches him to communicate with other men and brings him to a construction site and helps him get job. He even brings him to a hardware store and fronts him the money to buy some tools for his new job.
However the gang is relentless, and beat up Thao and take his tools while he is walking home from work. Clint Eastwood, I mean Walt, is none too happy about that, so he beats the snot out of one of the gang members.
The gang members respond by shooting up Thao’s house and raping his sister setting the stage for the climax of the film. The Hmong community won’t talk to the police…What’s Walt going to do? Throughout the film, he also developed a relationship with Thao’s sister which seems to be a supplemental relationship to Walt’s real granddaughter. Walt’s a man and these thugs need to be brought to justice.
Thao comes over to Walt’s house the next morning demanding that he go with Walt over the gang house and that they extract justice. Walt tells him to go home and calm down – now is the time to detach yourself from the situation and calm down…now is not the time for fighting – that’s when stupid things happen. Now, is the time for planning. He tells Thao to come back at 4 o’clock… When Thao comes back, Walt locks him in his basement so that Thao won’t ruin his life and he goes to confront all the gang members by himself in the most Clint Eastwoody way possible – a standoff in the middle of the night.
Just when you think there is going to be an awesome shoot out with old man Eastwood, he reaches in his pocket to get his lighter and all the gang members open fire on him in front of a bunch witnesses. Come to find out, Walt wasn’t even armed when he went to the house. He went to sacrifice himself so that the men who raped Thao’s sister would go to prison for murder.
The movie ends where is began, with a funeral, and Walt leaving his Gran Torino to Thao.
Man Test
Does this movie pass the man test? Absolutely, 100%... One of the enduring aspects of this
movie is how Walt initiates Thao into manhood – showing him how to be a man in this world. In so doing, Walt grows as a human being as well. Earlier in the movie, Walt has a conversation with the priest where he tells the priest that he is just a 27 year old virgin right out of seminary that gets his kicks promising eternity to old woman. He then precedes to tell the priest that he doesn’t know anything about life or death, and then proceeds to tell him some stories of the horrors of war.
The young priest admits that he doesn’t have the experiential knowledge that Walt has, but then tells Walt that he (Walt) knows much about death, but not about life. In opening himself up to his neighbors and discipling Thao he learns much about life. By the end of the film, Walt comes to peace with his past and even goes to confession, which his wife, before her death asked the priest to watch over her husband and make sure that he goes to confession.
One the coolest things about this movie, is that you can clearly see the forces in our world vying for young men…As the African proverb says, “If the young are not initiated into the village they will burn it down to feel the warmth.” Walt, was a stubborn, racist, miserable old man at the beginning of the film, but by investing himself into this young man, he not only saves this young man’s life but also saves himself. In many respects, Walt is the Gran Torino, an old muscle car that doesn’t fit into this world anymore, but will live on through Thao.
Christian Worldview
What about Christian worldview? Are there any themes in this movie that Christians can learn from? This is not a “Christian movie” which is why it was so good. Yes, there is a ton of racial slurs in the movie and it doesn’t sugar coat sin and evil in any way. But this enables you to see the horrors and plight of the environment, and enables you to understand Walt’s hardness just a bit. It also, enables you to see real growth and change in Walt as the movie progresses.
Unfortunately, most Christian movies, are so sanitized and sugar coated, that anything in the film that resembles redemption in the film is reduced to something completely trite and superficial. Not to mention they are, almost always filled with racial stereotypes.
Nor is Gran Torino woke in anyway, which also makes it wonderful. This movie came out in 2008 and I would be amazed if it would be made today…because it is filled with racial slurs, and isn’t filled with racial stereotypes – like old white man bad and token ethnic community good. In fact, the most evil people in the film come from the same ethnic community as Thao. Because of this, you see real growth, between the characters. Bridges will never be crossed regarding race relations if groups of people are either perpetually victimized or exalted. This film does neither and its wonderful.
The two themes that I find most helpful as a Christian watching this film both relate to
masculinity…One practical, and the other redemptive. The development of Walt’s relationship with young Thao should be a reminder to Christian men that discipleship is always a two way street…That is, any time you pour into someone else you can’t help but pour into yourself.
But the most Christianly of Christian themes in the film is also the most masculine – that is, Walt’s sacrificing of himself for Thao so that Thao may live, and the evil doers be brought to justice. I know the film was not trying to preach Christ and Him crucified, but we have a copyright on self-sacrificial love in the gospel so I’m just going to own it.
Jesus Christ, lived the righteous life that we could not and died the death that we deserved to die – He was condemned in our place. When we repent and believe in Him for the forgiveness of sins we live because He died & rose again. Through the Cross, evil is punished in Christ, and life is given in Christ.
By the end of the film, we see that there is a more power force in the world than anger and raw power and it’s self-sacrificial love, and that’s pretty awesome, and that’s also pretty manly, giventhat masculinity is the glad assumption of sacrificial responsibility.
Overall, I give this movie an A.
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