Gran Torino (four stars total) is like a reverse of The Karate Kid for mature audiences, where a foul-mouthed, racist, "white devil" who doesn't want to get involved ends up saving a quiet, but already hard-working Asian kid who's not looking for help. To those who claim that a Clint Eastwood script is in a different league from one by the guy who wrote Rocky, I grant that Gran Torino explores more serious themes with more profanity, but I deny that the surrogate father-son dynamic is any less poignant. The movie made me seriously consider my relationship with my own dad. Kiddie fare or not, both Mr. Miyagi and Clint's Walt Kowalski character are old guys that beat up punk kids, abandon extended family, but above all, collect classic cars. Clint grumbles better than Mr. Miyagi though, and actually sounds halfway between Frankenstein and The Incredible Hulk. Gran Torino has both the funniest comedy (everyone in the theater laughed the whole way through) and the most heartbreaking tragedy (not to spoil anything, but moreso in the beginning and the middle than at the end) that I've seen in almost a year, and that includes WALL-E, Tropic Thunder, and Role Models. You'll notice that all of the movies I just listed are comedies with a real dark edge. Gran Torino too, but that's just its starting point. The whole movie has a gray veneer, even when it's sunny outside. The themes make up for any acting or music that's lacking, including Clint's amateur singing, God bless him. Some of the questions I took from it are: How do you reconcile religion and war? What are cultural differences between the East and the West? "What do you know about life and death?"
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