For San Francisco film lovers, we are pleased to present this story from “The Moving Picture.”

While I can appreciate Clint Eastwood’s talent as a filmmaker, I’ve never been a big fan of his films. I enjoy the Dirty Harry series and dig his westerns, but his recent directorial efforts, such as Flags of Our Fathers, Million Dollar Baby and Mystic River, never did anything for me. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed his latest, Gran Torino, and can safely say, thanks to a great script and an entertaining performance from Eastwood – it’s one of the best films of 2008.

Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a retired auto worker and disgruntled Korean War veteran who isn’t a fan of many things, mainly his new neighbors, Hmong immigrants from South East Asia. Walt’s wife has just passed away which means he has to deal with his two sons, who he isn’t close with, and a persistent Priest (Christopher Carley), who wants Walt to come to confession.

Walt spends his days working on his home, drinking beer, cleaning his rifle and talking with his equally racist Barber, Martin (John Carroll Lynch). He doesn’t live in the safest of neighborhoods and one night breaks up a fight between some gang members and Thao (Bee Vang), a Hmong teenager living next door. Walt was merely protecting his property but involuntarily starts a relationship with Thao and his family. While the gang presence around Thao increases, Walt becomes a mentor for the teen and slowly starts to overcome his racist mentalities.

The film moves along at a good pace and never has any dull moments. This is mainly due to Nick Schenk’s well written screenplay, which is essentiality a simple character study of Walt broken into three main parts. We have super-racist Walt at the beginning, Walt coming to grips with his new surroundings in the middle and finishing off with redemption for the character. In the end you feel like you’ve been with Walt for his whole life.

Eastwood does an excellent job behind the camera, but also still proves he has what it takes in front of it. Walt may be a miserable old man and a racist, but Eastwood not only manages to make you feel for him, but also entertain you as there are some very humorous moments. Gran Torino can be heavy on the drama at times but there is also a nice blend of comedy.

There’s something about Eastwood’s ability to grunt and scowl at people that just had me glued to the screen. It’s reminiscent of the Dirty Harry character, and incidentally, when Torino was first announced it was rumored to be the sixth installment in the Harry series.

While I didn’t have too many problems with Torino, there is one big flaw with the film and that lies with the supporting cast, which is made up primarily of first time actors. I would love to say they can hold their own opposite Eastwood, but they can’t and the film suffers because of it. They look the part and there is a sense of authenticity with them, but for the most part their inexperience on screen shines through in a big way. This is mainly from Bee Vang, who plays Thao. Walt and Thao share most of the films running time together and there are some pretty meaty and emotional driven scenes. A lot of the impact of these moments is lost because of Vang’s inexperience. It’s not disastrous and Vang isn’t completely horrendous, but you can’t help but feel that if someone more professional was in the role the film would have benefited in a big way.

The pace and script is probably why this turned out to be one of my favorite Eastwood films. I find with some of his others works there tends to be major issues in these departments, and his films can have the tendency to drag on and become boring. Torino never over stays its welcome and I look forward to watching it again.

Overall, Gran Torino proves Eastwood still has what it takes in front of the camera as well as behind it. It isn’t playing everywhere right now, but once it expands – I highly recommend you check it out.

[Thank you for reading SFLuxe.com. This article was published today by The Moving Picture. We hope you enjoyed it!]