Cinema Ombudsman: Gran Torino = Pink Cadillac?

I watched Gran Torino recently. It is not good cinema.

In terms of acting and natural sounding dialogue, I would say it is the worst movie I've seen in a theater since I took an unsuspecting sophomore to see Eraser on an ill-fated 1996 date. The runner-up for best moment in Eraser comes when Arnold Schwarzenegger shoots an alligator that has, through a truly unforeseeable sequence of events, wound up in the middle of a broader shoot out between Arnold and the bad guys, and Arnold says "You're luggage!" It was as if the writers came up with "You're luggage!" first and thought "YAHTZEE! - but now we just need to somehow work an alligator into an action scene..." But the best/worst moment in Eraser, and arguably all of cinematic history, comes when Arnold gets into a shoot out on a plane. Somehow the plane door flies open and Arnold is holding on to the outside of the plane. The outside of the plane! Chairs, bolted to the aircraft's floor, are being sucked out of the plane but Arnold holds on and is dodging bullets. He grasps for a parachute but it is sucked out and flies out of the plane towards earth. What does Arnold do? He makes himself very aerodynamic and, like a human missile, catches up to the parachute in midair and puts it on. What a scene! BUT WAIT....the airplane turns around and hits Arnold! I say again, a fullsize, 747 airplane traveling at speeds that must be presumed to be around 500 mph, hits Arnold Schwarzenegger in midair. Contradicting intuition, Arnold is not immediately killed, but does become annoyingly entangled in his chute. He plummets thousands of feet to earth, where he lands on a car. He is largely unharmed. Don't believe me? Here it is.

Gran Torino was not as ridiculous, but it was close. The plot is unbelievable as it centers around a marauding gang of Asians in Detroit. Please note that Asians account for less than 2% of the population in Detroit. This Asian gang, that Gran Torino would have you believe stalks the Motor City's streets, listens to "gangsta" rap and speaks in "gangsta" lingo. Essentially, they serve as an absurd, thinly-veiled proxy for a black gang. Look, after Eastwood's recent dustup with Spike Lee, I can understand why Eastwood wouldn't want to make a movie reflecting poorly on African Americans. But that doesn't make it any less ridiculous to the viewer. If you don't want to worry about offending black people, then don't set your movie in the ghetto of Detroit and have gangs involved - just write about something else. Its like the domestic equivalent of Air Force One or The Peacemaker with terrorist villains who hail from terrorism hotbeds like Moscow and Sarajevo. Don't want to offend Muslims? No problem, but don't forcefeed your audience nonsense. I have Italian relatives who are offended by mob movies, but that doesn't mean I want to see the story of the Gevogelte crime family's reign of dominance over Belgian neighborhoods in Queens. ("Its a Flemish message...it means Pieter Klaus sleeps with the vises"). Alright... let me calm down after all of the humor I just delivered.

There are other problems with the movie. Eastwood's acting is great, but his character is cantankerous to the point of being unintentionally hilarious. The young neighbors he befriends have uneven characters and awkward, unbelievable dialogue. Finally, the preposterously miscast priest provides an uninspired performance and adds little to the movie: If the audience hadn't already picked up on the Christian theme, they certainly did when Eastwood died with his arms spread and feet perfectly together as if he were on a crucifix. With all of the needless talking outloud to himself Eastwood did throughout the movie, I was surprised that he didn't just sit up and say "This is religious symbolism" as the movie ended.

But anyway, this is not a movie review. This is a movie review review. One Peter Travers, a reviewer for Rolling Stone, gave Gran Torino, essentially a Diet Eraser, 3 and one half out of 4 stars. Nearly perfect! And look at the nominations: incredibly, AFI named it one of the best 10 films of 2008. Look, everyone has different opinions, but people in the theater I was in were ready to walk out. How can there be this disconnect?

I believe there are three possibile, non-mutually exclusive, reasons. First, the movie industry is filthy and reviewing films for major publications is a shady business. Studios regularly throw money and gifts at well known reviewers, and this is generally considered acceptable! Only the most overt bribery is frowned upon - for example, actually hiring the film critics on the side and creating an imaginary movie reviewer...apparently those crossed the line. Second, reviewers tend to reward actors they admire or want to succeed, even if the movie they are in is sub-par. A third, less nefarious option, is that even knowledgable reviewers occasionally swing and miss.

Here, I would be shocked if the studio wasn't pushing this movie heavily on critics: without any real say over what Eastwood directs (the link also leads to an accurate, well-written review), the only hope the studios have to make a profit off a terrible movie is to promote it as much as possible. Further, most people - studios, reviewers and movie-goers - like Clint Eastwood, and would like to see him end his career with a good movie. To be clear, am I saying that Peter Travers or AFI are involved in any impropriety? No. However the only other option remaining is that they are just terribly, horribly wrong about Gran Torino.

In conclusion, I was paid $4 an hour to herd pigeons for scenes in In the Line of Fire.