by Rebecca Bauer

Created on: February 11, 2009   Last Updated: March 01, 2009

Despite the fact that Clint Eastwood's "Gran Torino" deserved several Oscar nominations, including Best Actor, there is a reason why you shouldn't feel bad that it got snubbed: Walt Kowalski doesn't want your recognition. All he wants is to fix things around the house and drink his Pabst Blue Ribbon on the front porch, where from the vantage of his rusty folding chair, he watches as his neighborhood, indeed the world, transforms into something almost unrecognizable to him.

Much like the city of Detroit itself, Walt (I'm sorry - that's Mr. Kowalski) is a dying American breed, the last of an era of hard-working ideals and gritty determination. As a retired Ford assembly worker, he cannot hide his disgust for his son who sells foreign-made cars for a living; As a recent widower, he can't understand the disrespect shown when his grandchildren wear sports jerseys and bare midriffs to his wife's funeral; As a veteran of the Korean War, he has a hard time welcoming the Asian immigrants who have taken over his once solidly white, middle-class neighborhood.

To be honest, Walt doesn't much like anybody, especially his family. He's content telling racist jokes with his drinking buddies at the bar or trading insulting ethnic barbs with his barber, so no one is more taken aback than Walt himself when he finds a kindred spirit in his young neighbors, Tao and Sue. Bonded by a shared sense of family, honor, and decency once thought extinct, Walt becomes an unlikely savior from local gangs, fast becoming the neighborhood hero, reluctantly drawing him into their world. As Sue lectures Walt on her people's history and culture, he finds great respect for the Hmong (after learning that the H is silent), and that despite his prejudices, they were never his enemy. Plus, their women can really cook (just stay away from his dog).

Fear not, dear reader, because this review contains absolutely no spoilers. I would love to give more detail as to the story, but I feel strongly that this film should be seen without any preconceptions and must be seen in the theater for the full effect. Usually this is said of blockbuster action movies so one can better appreciate the special effects on the big screen, but this movie should be seen with an actual audience so one can better appreciate the human factor. The dialogue is spectacular, often so raw and un-PC that you're unsure if it's okay to laugh or not. (For such a serious movie, there's a surprising amount of laughter.) The plot twists in this story take both uplifting and heartbreaking turns you will never see coming. Indeed, most of what makes this story so striking is that it is utterly unexpected.

As beautiful, touching, and surprisingly haunting as "Million Dollar Baby," which Mr. Eastwood also directed and starred in, "Gran Torino" will at times leave you not knowing whether to wince or laugh, cry or applaud for this bigot with a heart of gold. You probably know Walt Kowalski in some form or another: an hard-nosed old curmudgeon, a racist unable to let the past go. You'll also come away from this movie speechless, feeling that just like his mint-condition 1973 Gran Torino, they don't make them like Walt Kowalski anymore.

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