The Last Movie I Saw

Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino is an expert piece of workmanlike filmmaking. By that I mean it reaches a level of entertainment I associate with the kind of b-movie melodramas that transcended their assembly-line origins in the old Hollywood studio system of the 1930s and 1940s (something like Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour, for example; or maybe the early films of Sam Fuller). That might sound like a backhanded compliment, but I don't mean it that way. On any given night, watching Turner Classic Movies on TV, one is likely to stumble across something both obscure and surprisingly good. Obscure because it lacks stars, or production values, or maybe just because nobody deemed it worthy of attention at the time of its release (there have always been blockbusters generating massive publicity, and they often swamp inaccurately pre-determined "lesser" films), but regardless of those factors still manages to be both entertaining and artistic, ripe with small pleasures to tickle the right audience.

Of course, there are few stars bigger than Clint Eastwood, who gives a tour de force performance in Gran Torino. But it is the kind of story that today one would normally associate with the more quirky independent scene, and if it lacked someone of Eastwood's stature at the helm would no doubt be consigned to the arthouses, or maybe go straight to video. Eastwood's presence makes it appear to be more of a prestige project, but I'm not sure it really resembles anything else in that category, at least since Eastwood's own Unforgiven. It certainly doesn't look like the other "high concept" nonsense that garners wide release (just the name Paul Blart: Mall Cop cynically telegraphs the mindless dreck that awaits anyone silly enough to actually buy a ticket-- but there will be lots of folks who do).

Gran Torino shows multiple signs of having been made quickly (some minor continuity glitches and small holes in character development), but they are ultimately irrelevant and fail to stall the momentum of the story that earns the right to end on a highly (one might almost say hamhanded) symbolic note. Because Eastwood is such a pro, and knows how to shape a narrative to spark audience involvement, he gets away with the petty lapses that might sink a more complicated scenario. To put it another way, he keeps it simple. Eastwood is definitely capable of much more (as evidenced most recently by his Iwo Jima diptych); but much more is not always necessary to make a worthwhile movie.