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Gran Torino -- Not Cowboy Justice

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**spoilers below**

I went to see the new Clint Eastwood movie because a friend recommended it and because it had Clint Eastwood in it. I knew that the story line from the ads involved the Eastwood character confronting a local gang in his neighborhood. Given this, I was expecting him to stand up to the local gangs in the "spaghetti western" style of being the lone betrayed man against evil men. But it seems that Mr. Eastwood has discovered morality -- and it ain't the right one.

Eastwood plays a character whose wife has just died and is given a Catholic burial and ceremony. He doesn't seem to really like Catholicism and continually scoffs at the local young priest who promised his wife before she died that he would take care of the old man. One can tell that living in the house he bought perhaps 40 years ago without his wife there any longer is painful to him, and he doesn't like the new neighbors moving into the neighborhood -- of the same oriental race that he fought during the Vietnamese War. This gives some good tension at the beginning of the movie as he slowly gets to know his neighbors -- especially a young man who has a lot to learn about life and standing up for himself.

The climax of the movie begins as the local young man is sought by a local gang because he refused to join their gang; and as the Eastwood character tries to get the young man to stand up for himself. But things escalate one after the other until

the young man's sister gets raped by the gang.

Finally, knowing that the young man doesn't stand a chance on his own, the Eastwood character decides to take matters into his own hands. I was fully expecting some sort of wild west shoot-out, in the old Clint Eastwood style -- one man against a potentially deadly gang.

However, this doesn't happen at all. Getting everything in order, he sets out to confront the gang, and basically entices them to shoot him in front of witnesses. I saw his actions as totally unnecessarily self-sacrifice, and probably immoral according to the Objectivist ethics. The friend of mine who saw it claims he was standing up for his values of his new friends who helped him to see that life was still worth living; but I didn't see it as necessary at all that he sacrifice himself in that manner. I was grossly disappointed and horrified.

I think Eastwood's career started going downhill with Unforgiven, which had no clear hero or villain. If I were to write a historical review of Eastwood's movies, I would have to call it: Clint Eastwood: From Cowboy Justice to Catholic Self-Sacrifice.

Perhaps his next movie will be better, since I don't recommend this one at all.

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Is it me, or are Eastwood films these days becoming obsessed with suffering and sacrifice? Flags of my Fathers echoed this tune, with the heroes of show suffering constant guilt for being the ones who came home (As opposed to the ones who died) and discrimination (In one hero's case, for being of Indian race). It just gets worse and worse until the ending, which is hardly inspiring or even the least bit satisfying at all.

I haven't seen all of Eastwood's films, though, so am I over-reacting?

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The man is 78 years old.

As such his own death looms larger in his own mind than it has in his past.

His films are simply increasingly about characters facing their own mortality and finding their own accomodation with death, reflecting the preoccupations of an aging man.

They are also about people looking back on their own life's work and accomplishments from the perspective of one nearing the end.

You don't look at an old man's work expecting the preoccupations to be those of a young man.

Also:

By the end of the film it has been established that he is probably dying of lung cancer. Eastwood's character has the option of going out standing on his feet or dying a lingering death in a hospital bed. One can argue it is simply the choice of dying man about how exactly he wants to go out.

Edited by punk
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My assessment of the film is different, but my first question is what makes you think that his actions were self-sacrificial? I ask because my first reaction to the ending was a negative one, but after thinking about it, I didn't think as ill of it. Considering the fact that

Eastwood's character was showing symptoms of something potentially life-threatening (coughing up blood, etc.)

, and the fact that he's a very cognizant character (which is another plus for the film) it makes me see even more that his actions are in promotion of his (recently) identified values (which makes up the plot of the film). In addition, instead of having the Spaghetti-Western style of just taking out the bad guys (explicating the need for justice), there was something much more personal at stake, which was a bonus.

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I saw it last night. There were some fairly funny lines, but I wasn't too happy with the ending. The acting of the supporting characters also seemed a bit weak.

In any event, they shot the movie in the Detroit area and several of the scenes were in my local neighborhood. It was pretty to cool to see.

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My 1-26-2009 review originally posted elsewhere:

I don't recommend this film. It is a perfect example of Eastwood's and America's seriously mixed philosophical principles. (Mystic River almost swore me off any more Eastwood movies; this one did it.)

Just when you think you're going to see a man of action reject religion in favor of decisions and actions here on this earth, you instead see that man cave in to the 'truth' of the mystic yammerings of, literally, a bone throwing witch doctor. After saying that he only went to church to please his wife, he relents and goes to confession when he is about to die…

Although you see a man who does have some standards for judging that are not based on race, all his speech indicates otherwise. He mixes really derogatory speech with 'kidding' with his friends.

You see a seriously mixed representation of serving in the American military. The courage under fire and pride in fighting for what America stands for - as depicted by the medal - is completely undercut with the 'baby killer' style confession. Is this guy proud of his fighting for America or not?

You see a man without the full, proper understanding of what it is to 'be a man'. Is it courage under fire, standing up to tyranny, and working to support himself or knowing how to recite the typical brain-dead day-to-day banalities, including lying about your ability to get a job.

A few witty lines ("And keep your hands off my dog."………"We eat cats.") and some resistance to thugs aren't enough to save this film for me. There are better representations of both without the undercutting flaws of this one.

Once again I just have to wonder "What could someone with this talent have done if he had the correct philosophy?" *********sigh*******

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My assessment of the film is different, but my first question is what makes you think that his actions were self-sacrificial? I ask because my first reaction to the ending was a negative one, but after thinking about it, I didn't think as ill of it. Considering the fact that

Eastwood's character was showing symptoms of something potentially life-threatening (coughing up blood, etc.)

, and the fact that he's a very cognizant character (which is another plus for the film) it makes me see even more that his actions are in promotion of his (recently) identified values (which makes up the plot of the film). In addition, instead of having the Spaghetti-Western style of just taking out the bad guys (explicating the need for justice), there was something much more personal at stake, which was a bonus.

I agree with this. This is a realistic ending for the movie, him charging into the gang's house like it was a North Korean machine gun nest would be stupid.

And for the poster complaining about the character's racist banter, the phrase that comes to my mind is "bourgesoise pretentiousness".

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My assessment of the film is different, but my first question is what makes you think that his actions were self-sacrificial? I ask because my first reaction to the ending was a negative one, but after thinking about it, I didn't think as ill of it. Considering the fact that

Eastwood's character was showing symptoms of something potentially life-threatening (coughing up blood, etc.)

, and the fact that he's a very cognizant character (which is another plus for the film) it makes me see even more that his actions are in promotion of his (recently) identified values (which makes up the plot of the film). In addition, instead of having the Spaghetti-Western style of just taking out the bad guys (explicating the need for justice), there was something much more personal at stake, which was a bonus.

I went through the same transformation of thought as you.

First, I thought he was sacrificing himself. But he sees the kid as the son he "never" had, and there are a thousand threads on this forum supporting a parent's choice to put their childrens' survival above their own.

Edited by brian0918
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  • 1 month later...

I finally saw this movie for the first time last night and I wholly agree with Brian and Grames. It came as a HUGE surprise that anyone on the board would think of the ending as self-sacrificial, but that may be because I am extremely interested in all of the 'parent sacrificing life for child' type threads on this board.

*spoilers*

The ending was exactly in line with the Objectivist arguments for dying to save a loved one or a higher value. The man saw this family, and particularly 'Toad', as his only friends. Toad had potential to be a great human being, one that lived up to the values of Walt probably better than he ever did. Realistically, he's not going to storm a house and kill five gang members. Even if he could, he would have to accept the challenge with the understanding that if even one survived, that surviving gang member would do terrible things to his new friends. Walt instead thought very carefully about what he had to do to truly eradicate the problem and allow Toad to grow up as a strong contributing member of society.

As for the review a couple posts up talking about how he took religion back into his life by going to one confession, I completely disagree. It seems rather that as the movie progressed, Walt came to respect the Father as an individual and this had nothing to do with the church.

Finally, that same review talked about how it seemed confusing whether or not Walt supported his country in the war. I think this was made very clear in a conversation with the priest. Walt had talked about all the horrible things he had done during the war, and the priest said something along the lines of "lots of man were ordered to do terrible things and it haunts them for all of their life..." and Walt replied along the lines of "it's the things that you aren't ordered to do that haunt you". This explains how he can support the action of the military, but be terribly disturbed by his own actions.

Overall, great movie.

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The movie offers important and profound messages.

Message to society at large regarding dealing with thugs:

Step One. Find a group of really stupid thugs.

Step Two. Find a guilt ridden, terminally ill guy who will agree to let stupid thugs kill him.

Step Three. Convince the guilt ridden, terminally ill guy to taunt the stupid thugs into killing him in front of witnesses.

Step Four. Amen, justice is served.

Message to really stupid thugs:

Kill the guilt ridden, terminally ill guy away from witnesses.

~ or ~

Kill the witnesses, too.

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