Wizened

The fact that I really enjoyed "Gran Torino" is not a surprise. I have been a Clint Eastwood fan since my older brother first introduced me to the spaghetti westerns, and later the Dirty Harry canon/cannon. The surprise to me is how much more interesting Clint has become to me over the past thirty-some years. The part of the trailer that plucks that old Eastwood string is the snarl over the barrel of a loaded gun, "Get outta my yard!" It's almost a caricature. The fact that he reclaims that moment and makes it pay off as something other than a cheap laugh is credit enough, but there is much more there.
The past sixteen years have been all about rewriting his own myth. The characters he plays and the movies he chooses to direct these days fill in the broad strokes of the seventies. William Munny, the hired killer of "The Unforgiven" is not that different from "The Man With No Name" by way of "The Outlaw Josey Wales," but now he feels free to show us just how a soul could be twisted. When his young associate suggests that the man he just shot "had it coming," Munny replies, "We all got it coming, kid."
And that's the story Clint has stuck to for the past decade and a half. He wants us to know that killing a man doesn't make you a hero. It's how you deal with death in its many forms that makes a hero. The once mighty physical presence of Clint Eastwood may have grown a little crooked and gray, but the squint and the gravelly voice have only become enhanced with age. Brad Pitt becomes younger and more beautiful, while Clint seems to revel in his own disintegration. Still, when his character, Walt says, "Ever notice how you come across somebody once in a while you shouldn't have messed with? That's me," you believe it. "Gran Torino" is a requiem for the tough guys who have sneered and growled and served up justice for forty years. How do you live with yourself after all the shooting is done? I believe that Clint Eastwood has finally delivered peace with honor.