Gran Torino

Expected this to be an outstanding movie. It was unfortunately merely disappointing and near-insubstantial. Didn’t know anything about the film prior to watching, other than it was supposed to be incredibly good, star Eastwood, and be about some delinquents and a car. Knowing about the first two points made me have high expectations for the movie, and apparently my expectations turned out to be a bit too high.

The movie delivers a good message, but the whole execution left a lot to be desired. Eastwood’s acting is solid, as expected, but almost every other actor seemed to be either just passable or downright bad. It seemed to me that they cast a lot of inexperienced actors, and this bothered me quite a bit, even if the focus of the film was on Eastwood’s character. It’s difficult to believe that Eastwood’s character can change so much because of the people around him if the people are not believably depicted.

One of the most unpleasantly memorable performances was the portrayal of Sue. She seemed unnatural and was maybe trying too hard. Couldn’t help wondering if she had any acting experience at all. Every scene with her made me facepalm a bit because I couldn’t take her seriously. I’m sure there are worse performers than her in other films, but I couldn’t tolerate such a shoddy actress playing a part that’s supposed to make BLOODY CLINT EASTWOOD (as a fictional surly old man) turn over a new leaf and become a nice old man.

A lot of other things felt forced, such as having so many Hmong people in one neighbourhood and always having 60480 people go to one house to have a large party. The ending was ultimately an expected conclusion, but I couldn’t help but think that there could’ve been a much more logical end to the film. The death of the character(s) at the end felt unnecessary and even wasteful. Disappointing and unsatisfying. 68/100