Seventy-eight year old Clint Eastwood shown no signs of slowing down as he draws on his tough guy image to star in his latest self-directed film as Walt Kowalski, a veteran of the Korean War. His eyes squint as he sees what has happened to his once all-American neighbourhood and he snarls at his Indo-Chinese neighbours. When a neighbour trespasses on his pristine lawn, he gets out his rifle and lets the trespasser know that he will ‘blow a hole in your face and sleep like a baby’. The audience is almost expecting him to come out with ‘go ahead, make my day’ or ‘do you feel lucky?’ as he abuses everyone around him in his politically incorrect lingo that he hasn’t bothered to update.
Actually he hasn’t bothered to update anything in his life and holds firmly onto the past values as well as his pride and joy – a 1972 Ford Gran Torino car. He lives on beef jerky and beer and chews tobacco, using opportune moments show his dissatisfaction by spitting out the juice. His son comments that the ‘miserable old bugger’ is living in the 1950s and nobody can please him, and he is right. When the young boy next door attempts to steal his car in order to join the local gang, Kowalski is forced to confront some of the things that are going on around him. He is not pleased but vengeance is something he is expert at.
Just like a fine wine, Eastwood just keeps on getting better. He has always taken the audience for a ride with humour and insights into all things violent but this is a brilliant vengeance movie with cast of non-actors, some of whom don’t even speak English. The low budget film is certainly not what you’d expect, but you won’t find out until the last scene.
