You Messed with the Wrong GRANdaddy

After his role in the Oscar-winning film Million Dollar Baby, Clint Eastwood is back as the cranky and iron-willed, Korean War veteran grand daddy, Walt Kowalski, in Gran Torino.

His late wife’s final wish is for him to take a confession but his stubbornness kept him from abolishing all the demons he has been carrying all his life. His rigid personality keeps even his own family away.

He spends his days cleaning his rifles, doing home repairs, getting a monthly haircut from an “Italian son of a bitch prick barber”, and polishing his 1972 Ford Gran Torino. That is, until the night a “pussy” Toad (Tao) tried to steal his Gran Torino as part of a gang initiation.




He becomes the reluctant hero of an entire interracial neighborhood when he saved Tao’s life from the gangsters. The once resentful Walt finds a place in the lives of people he has nothing in common with, and a friend in Tao who once tried to steal his beloved car. Soon, he comes to understand these foreigners, their culture, and eventually himself. Ironically, it is really in the end that we learn life’s greatest lessons.

Directed by no other than Clint Eastwood himself, Gran Torino will make you laugh, cry, commit murder, and understand and appreciate your grouchy, old-school grandfather.


THE GOOD: Okay, burn me alive here, but I honestly thought that Clint Eastwood’s name in the film was Gran Torino, as in Grandfather Torino. So when my friend told me that it’s actually a vintage 1972 Ford…haha…well, so much for the car enthusiast in me. I never liked vintage cars anyway.


When I first saw the trailer, I immediately dismissed the movie as boring. I haven’t seen Million Dollar Baby or any Clint Eastwood film for that matter, so cut me some slack here. It was my first encounter with a legend. The man just seemed so…real. The way he moved, gritted his teeth, sighed, and even the way he drank booze…they all seemed too natural for the man.

Notice how some people keep on saying “hey bro”, “what the fuck”, “son of a bitch”, “bastard”, and “shit” but still they come off so wrong and they end up looking like pathetic, trying-hard-to-be-cool, losers? Well, you’ll hear these words all throughout the film but instead of wincing, you’ll end up grinning at the sheer brilliance of how the actors connect with each other. Two thumbs up for the colorful language.

THE BAD: I know the film’s trying to educate us about a culture apart from ours, but I think the Koreans were portrayed in a rather bad light in the film. So far, that’s about the only thing (well, apart from the ending) I can complain about.

THE VERDICT: Certain parts of the film will make you feel downright uncomfortable because these are the things we are all aware of but are simply too terrifying to confront that we keep putting it off—like making peace with the past, facing our own demons, and changing the way we treat our elders, especially our grandparents. I actually cried towards the ending.

I recommend this film to anyone who wants a breather from the all-too-common and downright shallow movies that will flood the theater houses this February.

Event: Gran Torino Press Screening
The Podium, Cinema 1, 7 PM
Credits: Thanks, Azrael and Warner Bros. Philippines for the invites!
Thanks bro for coming with me! :)