Revised Monday 01.07.2019. Here's what I wrote back in 2009 when I gave this 2.5 stars: This is not Clint Eastwood's best outing, either acting or directing. Gran Torino is not hitting on all cylinders. The main problem I have with the movie is that it elevates message over story. This is one of the most artificially written and artificially delivered scripts I've seen in some time, and from experience, when that happens, it means that the good people involved have lost sight of the primary mission of the movie: to entertain. Yes, it's always nice to instruct viewers, but instruction should be a motivation that plays a lesser role. Entertainment is what we're always hoping for when we watch a movie, and if we actually learn something along the way, that's like icing on the cake. This movie is not without some entertainment value -- no Eastwood project ever is -- but it is far too message-driven at far too great a cost to any other purpose. Now today, ten years later: I watched this for the first time since I wrote what I did above. Here's what I think 10 years later: I'm a huge Eastwood fan, dating back to his bursting on the scene as the gunfighter who would never waste a single bullet by missing his target, the man with no name in A Fistful of Dollars. Over the years I've come to enjoy Eastwood at about a 90% rate. The other 10%, well, we're not here to talk about the man's political ramblings. So sticking to his acting, writing, directing, producing, and yes, even musical score composing, also including his actually playing some of that music himself, I'm a huge fan. I believe I have seen every movie with which he's ever been associated. Some are more cutting-edge than others, and those that fall on the more predictable side are still, most often, solid projects. Gran Torino is one of these. By predictable, what I mean here is that I think anyone with movie-going experience would probably be able to guess, given the details as they unfold, that the conclusion of the movie is "known" before it ends.. While we may not predict exactly what fate will befall Eastwood, the gang members, and Eastwood's Asian neighbors, we can pretty much guess that Eastwood's hard character will mellow to some extent, that he'll become a little more liberal (remember, we're not taking about Eastwood's real-life politics), and that the bad guys are going to pay somehow. Guess what? That is what happens, and we love watching it unfold to the bittersweet end, and everything revolves, of course, around that Gran Torino. That car is Eastwood, it is the working-class, it is America, it is the American veteran, it is economics and economic globalization, it is racial intolerance, and it is, to its best extent, racial harmonization. That awesome car is quite a symbol-laden one that stands at the center of a solid story with a nice cast. So: I'm bumping it up to 3.5 stars. Who knows what I'll think when I watch it 10 years from now.

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