Gran Torino was written by Nick Schenk. The film's programmatic depiction of Walt's transition from xenophobe to grudging member of a "changing" America is hardly subtle . It appears to be a pretty formulaic piece about how the old geezer becomes the unlikely protector of a family of foreigners that move in next door, and in particular a surrogate father-figure to the teen son and daughter. And they’re not merely foreigners, which would disturb him in any case; they’re Southeast Asian (Hmong, specifically), and so look very much like the “gooks” he killed during service in the Korean War.
Though this basic “reform of the codger” plot has been told many times, not only on the big screen but on the tube, what sets it apart in this case is both the degree of prejudice the old coot expresses—Eastwood's character Walt uses about every racial epithet you can imagine—and the fact that it’s not really offensive because it is all what we secretly think on a daily basis. The affection for Eastwood that a viewer automatically brings with him, allows the mainstream to laugh at the character’s "misguided" attitudes rather than become frightened by them. Eastwood's Walt Kowalski becomes a sort of spindly twenty-first century version of Archie Bunker, and you know that whatever he says, there’s a heart beating within him that will eventually win out. The picture thus delivers the message that there’s a PC multiculturalist inside every racist just straining to get out, no matter how set in his ways he might be.
While becoming embroiled in the Third World hell that urban Detroit has become, Walt Kowalski's racial sense of justice, morality and order won’t allow him to ignore some of the more egregious behavior he witnesses. He attempts to civilize the Muds around him by example through service and empathy, yet the film's writer makes it plain that there’s no place left in the world for Walt and those like him. But while Walt and his ilk may be doomed, they are useful to a point.
The obligatory uplifting postscript—extremely corny, but strengthening Walt’s symbolic value as the last of his kind—shrewdly reiterates the multicult agenda, albeit in a lopsided, hammy and overdetermined manner.
I am a Clint Eastwood fan, but I found this film to be below average tripe and—with Eastwood's claim that with this film, he retires from acting—a disappointing farewell from a beloved film icon.
