Gran Torino

Growing up, when I thought of Clint Eastwood, I thought of a bad-ass. Like Charles Bronson. Or Chuck Norris. A real tough guy. There was Dirty Harry and Blondie and Josey Wales.

Now Clint Eastwood is old. 79 years old. And he mostly directs movies. When I saw that he was starring in Gran Torino I got excited. Not only because he was going to be in a new movie, but because my family also owned a Ford Gran Torino. We didn't own a 2-door fast back coupe like his, nor did we own a red one with a racing stripe like Starsky and Hutch. We had a '74 4-door with a black vinyl top with a root beer-colored paint job. But it was still cool to us.

In Gran Torino Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a recent widower, who has lived in his Detroit home for several decades and watched the once-thriving working class neighborhood slowly deteriorate into a mixed ethnic bad neighborhood. A Korean War veteran, Walt doesn't like Asians, nor too many other people. And he's not afraid to tell anyone what he thinks of them.

The situation gets uncomfortable when his teenage Hmong neighbor is caught trying to steal his Torino. However, a couple days later Walt finds himself standing up to gang members trying to intimidate his neighbors. For his actions he his showered with accolades, foods, and flowers from the very people he despises.

Though wanting to be left alone, Walt finds himself endeared to his young neighbors when they show that they are not intimidated by his flippant bigotry.

Additionally, the young Father Janovich, who performed the eulogy for his recently passed wife, keeps showing up at Walt's door explaining the promise he made to Walt's wife to look over him. Despite Walt's stubborn rejections of the Father's friendly gestures, Janovich remains unrelenting in his quest to fulfill his late wife's wish - to get Walt to come to confession.

Tensions culminate when the gang members decide to stand up to Walt and drive him out of the neighborhood.

Gran Torino is a great movie and shows tough-guy Eastwood as we would have pictured him to be 20 years ago. In addition to liking his character, I could also relate to his determination to stop the urban decay in his neighborhood and stand up for what is right.

Gran Torino is rated R for violence and tons and tons of bigotry and language throughout the entire movie.

I highly recommend this movie and give it 5 stars, my highest rating.

Changeling

I must admit that when Changeling arrived from Netflix, I had no idea what it was about. The movie opens set in the 1920's in Los Angeles. Angelina Jolie plays a single mother named Christine Collins working at the phone company as what appears to be a shift supervisor at a switchboard.

One Saturday Christine is called to work and she is forced to leave her son home by himself. She promises him she'll be home by dark and will take him to the movies the following day. When she returns home from work she finds that he has disappeared.

Calls to the Los Angeles Police Department are dismissed. She's told that he'll show up and they don't start searching for children until they've been missing for 24 hours. Frantic she searches the neighborhood all evening to no avail.

She struggles for months with the L.A.P.D. and finds them uncooperative and arrogant. Finally she is informed that her son has been found and a reunion is scheduled. She arrives at the reunion only to learn that the child they are handing over is not her child. Again, she is dismissed and told that she's been through a lot of stress and is just confused.

Her plight continues to be ignored by the police and she finally seeks help from Reverend Gustav Briegleb, played by John Malkovich, who broadcasts a radio show that criticizes the corruption within the police department and government of Los Angeles.

I do not wish to give away this movie, but the story it tells is a compilation of true stories from the 1920's. Christine Collins did, in fact, have her child kidnapped and she was given a child that was not hers. With the help of Reverend Briegleb, she sues the city and exposes the corruption that has been gripping the city.

Furthermore, though not officially connected, there was a lunatic outside of Los Angeles that had murdered dozens of young boys and buried them on the property. The actual case was never resolved, but Christine Collins continued her fight, not only for missing children, but to fight corruption in politics and in the police department.

Changeling is about 2 hours and 20 minutes long, but kept my interested in the movie. I had to struggle to convince myself to pause it at the hour and 10 minute mark so that I could go to bed and finish watching it the following night. The movie made me angry, it made me sad. Angelina Jolie did an excellent job, as did director Clint Eastwood. In recognition for her work, Jolie was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. The movie is Rated R for language and some disturbing violence.

I give this movie 4 stars.