In Unforgiven, Clint Eastwood offers a critique of the classic Western myth of the lone gunslinger. Reflecting on the inescapable cycle of violence in which the gunslinger participates, he de-romanticizes the films through which he earned his fame, such as The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. With Gran Torino, Eastwood deepens this critique of vigilante justice and endless cycles of violence by offering self-sacrifice as the true path to justice.
Gran Torino features several important parallels to Unforgiven: a victimized woman, a reckless youth seeking murder, and Eastwood playing a grizzled veteran of many battles who has lost the taste for blood. Whereas in Unforgiven the protagonist is drawn back into the cycle of violence, Gran Torino offers a vision of ending the cycle of violence through self-sacrifice.
As with Unforgiven Eastwood starred in and directed Gran Torino. He plays Walt Kowalski, a Korean War veteran and auto worker who finds his neighborhood taken over by Hmong immigrants from southeast Asia. He is the epitome of toughness, work ethic, and racial prejudice. The film opens with the funeral of Walt’s wife, introducing Walt’s curmudgeonly nature, irritation with his shallow and materialistic sons and grandchildren, and his contempt for the priest of his local Catholic parish.
At the beginning of the film, Walt is antagonistic toward the well-intentioned, but obnoxious priest’s attempts to get him to return to church and go to confession. He dismisses the priest as an “over-educated, 27-year-old virgin, who likes to hold the hands of superstitious old ladies and promise them eternity.” Walt believes religion is a sham, admitting that he only went to church because of his wife. Walt is particularly unimpressed with the priest’s eulogy for his wife, which consists mostly of cliche reflections about how death is bittersweet. Initially, Walt seems an unlikely candidate to ask himself What Would Jesus Do?
The film introduces its central themes of violence, justice, and sacrifice through Walt’s Hmong neighbor, Thao, and his thug cousin. Thao’s cousin and the rest of his gang try to recruit Thao. As an initiation into the gang, Thao is supposed to steal Walt’s 1972 Gran Torino. Walt hears a noise in his garage, however, and goes to investigate. With his gun pointed at Thao, Walt slips; Thao flees.
Later, the thugs return to “offer” Thao a second chance to join their gang. They try to drag Thao into their car, while Thao’s mother, sister, and grandmother try to stop them. The ensuing commotion brings Walt outside with his gun pointed in the thugs’ faces. “Get off my lawn,” Walt growls. The thugs back down and the entire Hmong community considers Walt a hero for saving Thao. Walt, of course, was acting out of selfish motives–he simply wanted the foreigners off his lawn. Eastwood develops Walt’s character throughout the film, however, so that by its end he grows to love the Hmong neighbors he previously despised.
Walt is equally successful the next time that he uses the threat of violence. He happens to see Thao’s sister, Sue, being hassled by three guys. He tells them, “Ever notice how you come across somebody once in a while you shouldn’t of fucked with. That’s me,” and then scares them off by first pointing his finger at them like a gun, and then drawing a real pistol and aiming it at them. He then takes Sue home. This initiates a genuine friendship between the gruff Walt and the vibrant, quick-witted Sue.
Thao’s mother wants her son to make amends to Walt for trying to steal his car. Thao begins to work for Walt, but his penance becomes an apprenticeship. Walt teaches Thao how to use tools and make various home repairs. Acting as a surrogate father, Walt helps Thao toughen up and learn valuable skills.
The Hmong gang will not relinquish their claim on Thao. When Walt discovers they have given Thao a cigarette burn, he again uses violence and intimidation to stop them. Walt follows the thugs to their home and attacks one of them. After beating him up, he tells him to stay away from Thao. Walt further threatens the thug saying, “Got it? I’ll take that as a ‘yes’ because if I have to come back here it’s gonna get fuckin’ ugly.” Unlike earlier in the film, however, this show of force proves insufficient to eliminate the threat posed by the gang.
The gang retaliates first by shooting up the front of Thao’s house. Not content with vandalism, the gang beats and rapes Sue, to whom they are related by blood. The first two times Walt was able to scare off the thugs with his gun and fierce attitude, but now he has run up against the futility of trying to fight violence with violence, as it only adds “deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars” as Dr. King said.
Much like in Unforgiven, the unthinkable offense–that which the hero cannot refrain from retaliating against–has happened. In Unforgiven, when Will Munny’s friend Ned is killed, he slaughters those responsible–and several others who were hardly involved just for good measure. Gran Torino sets up the expectation that Walt will do the same to avenge Sue. Walt has given the thugs a fair chance, and now it’s time for him to blow them all away like they deserve, or so the old cowboy myth goes.
After Sue is abused, Walt tells the priest, “Thao and Sue are never gonna find peace in this world as long as that gang is around.” The problem with evil is that it never stops. It never sleeps. It never relents. No matter how many times Walt threatens the gang, they will never stop their predations. The priest worries that Walt will adopt the role of the avenger and kill the thugs. He says to Walt, “If I was Thao I guess I’d want vengeance. I’d want to stand shoulder to shoulder with you and kill those guys.” That is exactly what Thao wants. He is outraged by the way his cousin and the other thugs abused his sister, and wants revenge. Thao says, “Don’t let me down, Walt, not you” and “Thinking time is over. Now is the time to kick the shit out of those pricks.” Walt is more circumspect, however. He says to Thao, “Mr. Tough Guy out for blood all of a sudden–you know nothin’ about it.”
Having killed over a dozen people in Korea, some of them only teenagers, and having seen many of his fellow soldiers killed, Walt knows the grim reality of death. He refuses to undertake killing lightly. In fact, he refuses to undertake it at all.
Walt shows Thao the Silver Star he received in Korea. He earned the award by being the only member of his regiment to survive a deadly mission. Thao asks Walt what it was like to kill a man. Walt responds, “You don’t want to know.” A few minutes later, however, he elaborates, saying that killing is “goddamn awful.” He tells Thao that the only thing worse than killing a teenage boy who has been forced into war is receiving a medal for doing so. He locks Thao in his basement to protect the kid from getting himself killed. While Thao screams at Walt to let him out, Walt tells him that killing leaves a stain on the soul and “I’ve got blood on my hands; I’m soiled.”
Walt leaves to face the thugs alone, much like in Unforgiven. Like in the classic Western, the unflappable Walt stares down a shooting gallery of foes. He mocks his enemies, saying “Go ahead and pull those pistols like miniature cowboys.” Unlike the thugs, who relish the role of outlaws, Walt refuses to take on the role of the cowboy, of the lone gunslinger. In parallel to an earlier scene, Walt points his finger at the thugs as if it is a gun. When he reaches into his coat for his lighter, they open fire. Walt does not defend himself against the barrage of bullets; he falls to the ground with his arms spread apart in the sign of the cross. Walt’s last words are “Hail, Mary, full of grace” because in the act of following Christ’s example of laying down his life for his friends (John 15:13), he affirms the faith he previously rejected as superstition.
The climax of Gran Torino might easily shock long-time Eastwood fans. You mean he isn’t gonna get up and blow them all away? You mean he wasn’t wearing a bullet-proof vest? You mean he’s really dead? Walt discovers that self-sacrifice is the true path to justice. The thugs are arrested for murder; Thao and Sue are safe; the film ends with the priest giving Walt’s eulogy as it opened with the funeral of Walt’s wife. If Unforgiven dramatizes the falsehoods of the myth of the classic Western, then Gran Torino offers an alternative to seeking vengeance through violence.
