Review of Gran Torino (2008) by Justin O — 20 Aug 2015

This is an excellent film all in every respect. Clint Eastwood as the gritty, salty Korean War veteran Walt Kowalski, that has a heart underneath his rough exterior. Walt helps mentor a young Vietnamese teenage that was forced to steal his1972 Gran Torino by his cousins gang as his initiation, but Walt caught the kid in the act at gunpoint with his m1 garand and the kid barely made it outside.

The Vietnamese kid lives next door to Walt with his family and is forced to work off his debt that his family imposes om his for trespassing and trying to steal Walt's car. Walk makes him work for 2 weeks straight helpimg fix the neighbors houses, then helps him get a job as a laborer for construction company.

His cousin and his gang don't like him ignoring them so they steal his tools Walt bought for him and burnt his face with a hot cigarette. Walt is furious and confronts the gang and tells them to leave their cousin alome or they wouldn't like the outcome.

His cousin's gang does a drive by shooting on Walt's Vietnamese neighbor's house, Then the gang rapes and beats Thao's sister and Walt goes insane with anger. Thao wants revenge but Walt tells him to have patience and he would work out a plan.

Walt goes to the church to confess his sins he had made his his life, buys a taylor made suit and gets his haircut and shave. When Thao comes back to walt's house later that day, he gets locked in the basement by Walt because walt did not want thao to have blood on his hands like what walt had been through in korea.

Walt confronts the gang at their house for raping thao's sister and calls them cowards for what they did. Walt pulls out a cigarette from his pocket and asks them for a light, then says hail mary praise the lord as he reaches into his left jacket pocket and the gang members start shooting walt thinking he had a gun inside jacket poclet.

Walt is dead on scene as thao amd his sister pull up in walt's gran torino After the funeral at the will reading, Walt gives the gran torino to thao on strict guidelines that he not alter his gran torino in any way.

The ending was a really sad becuase you got the feeling that walt was going sacrifice himself to make sure those asian gangbusters would go to prison for murder after nobody reported thao's sister getting beaten and raped.

I couldn't stop the tears but I understood why walt did what he had to do.