Clint’s Driving, Get in the Car

By Bruce Collier
January 22, 2009 Issue

Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino, in which he also stars, is part character study, part swan song for the actor's decades-long image as a butt-kicker. At 78, Eastwood is definitely showing his age and makes full use of it as Walt Kowalski, a Korean War veteran living in an increasingly mixed Detroit neighborhood. Eastwood is about the only big name in the cast, which is made up of a talented group of actors, many of Asian descent.

Walt has just buried his wife, and finds himself trying to fill the days. His routine consists mainly of sitting on his front porch, sipping PBRs and glaring at the street. The presence next door of an extended Asian family aggravates Walt’s already irascible nature. Though he refers to them as Korean, Chinese, or Vietnamese—actually, by the racist nicknames for those nationalities—they are actually Hmong, a people living in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, who fled to America to escape persecution. Like many other immigrant youths, some Hmong find strength in forming street gangs. Walt inadvertently protects one of his neighbors from gang violence and finds himself a neighborhood hero.

The Hmong gestures of gratitude—gifts of food, invitations to social gatherings—initially puzzle and irritate Walt, but he finds himself getting involved in the lives of two of his teenage neighbors, Thao (Bee Vang) and Ahney (Sue Lor). Largely estranged from his own children, Walt gets a second chance at fatherhood by mentoring Thao. This leads to some of the film's more amusing scenes, where Walt attempts to "man-up" Thao in preparation for a job interview and a date.

However, this is a Clint Eastwood film, which means a lot of hardship and heartache. There's no lack of either, but the movie is well worth it just to watch Eastwood embracing his character's limitations. The old lion is still there, and he still has teeth. He just has to sit down and take a breather. The story is carefully and leisurely unrolled up to its (inevitably) violent resolution. The performances are first-rate, including that of Christopher Carley as Father Janovich, a persistent priest that won't leave Walt's soul alone.

By the way, the title car is Walt's, serving as a symbol of...his pride, his integrity, his legacy...take your pick. It all works.

Finally, a Date Movie for Grown-ups
It’s a safe bet that much of what makes Joel Hopkins’ Last Chance Harvey so wonderful wasn’t in the script. Academy Award winners Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson bring more to their roles as a pair of meet-cutes than efficient delivery of dialogue. What a joy it is to see these two old pros put aside the lofty dreams of gold statuettes and box office returns and simply get off on acting.

Hoffman is a failing jingle composer who travels to London for his estranged daughter’s wedding. Before the movie’s half-hour mark, our hero finds himself out of work, snubbed by his ex-wife and her current husband and stranded when he misses his flight back home. A chance encounter with Thompson, an airport survey-taker (quite possibly the most unglamorous movie job since Debra Winger’s paper bag factory worker in An Officer and a Gentleman), leads to a somewhat more mature take on Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise and Before Sunset.

There are a few missteps along the way—a clunky subplot involving Thompson’s meddlesome mum and her weird neighbor, some “almost meet-cutes” early on—but when Hoffman and Thompson share the screen, it’s more magical than anything Hollywood’s CGI geeks could ever dream up.
Christopher Manson

Paul Blart Is All Heart
In a comedic market that seemingly only flourishes with R-rated shock humor—the excessive nudity in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and deplorable language of Step Brothers spring to mind—it's rare to see a movie with a PG rating that is genuinely funny.†Paul Blart: Mall Cop delivers nearly as many laughs as the above-mentioned films and is still a suitable film for a family outing.†Kevin James, best known for his starring role on TV’s The King of Queens, gives a grand performance as the down-trodden security officer looking for love and glory in equal measure.

Blart leads a simple life.†He lives with his mother and two children—a parting shot from a wife who used him in an immigration scheme to gain citizenship—and takes an excessive amount of pride in his job as a security officer at a New Jersey shopping mall.†His dating service constantly informs him that he has "No Matches Found."†Blart funnels this frustration into his job, which he does particularly well zooming around on a Segway and nabbing shoplifters.†When Black Friday comes around, a gang of emo-infused skateboard hooligans begin launching a scheme to nab all of the credit receipts after the stores close, oblivious to the fact that Paul Blart is still in the mall, ready and willing to take them down.

The action is surprisingly entertaining—think two parts Die Hard and one part Mr. Bean—and Blart bumbles and stumbles his way to guts and glory by the end of the film.†Don't look for Paul Blart: Mall Cop to sweep the Oscars, but its warm and fuzzy protagonist and physical comedy make it a safe choice for family cinema.
Adam Pope

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