Thoughts on Gran Torino

My SPOP homie Vince recommend Gran Torino to me one day when I was his server at Guppys. I remember seeing previews for it so tonight a couple of homies and I went to LA to check it out.

My first thought was, "Wow, Clint Eastwood squints a lot. Man, he curses a lot too. Wait, did he just say gook?" Yes he did, and lots other racial epithets about Asians, Hispanics, you name it, and he probably said it in the movie. That aside, I thought it was an incredible movie. Although it's set in Michigan, probably Detroit, it could be set in any number of areas with a large Asian American population.

Throughout the movie, I kept thinking, "Man, this movie reminds me A LOT about my life." I think my youth paralleled the movie quite a bit. First off, there's a boy by that name of Thao in the movie who's shy and doesn't really know what to do with life and is kinda whooped around the house by his mother and sister - kinda reminds me of me when I was a kid. Another thing was that in the movie was set in a predominately Hmong neighborhood with Clint Eastwood's character as the only non-Asian household on the block - a lot like my neighborhood. I think what really hit home was the gang element in the movie. The gangs in the movie, as they are here, were formed because little kids were tired of being bullied by big kids. In the movie near the opening, Thao was seen walking home from school being harassed by Hispanic gang members and all of the sudden his cousin and his gang shows up to scare them away with an Uzi. I'm sure things like that happened down the street in the 90s in my area. This same gang who saves Thao comes to be the antagonist element in the movie.

Stuff happens, you can watch the movie if you wanna know what happens, and as expected, Clint Eastwood more or less takes Thao under his wing and helps him grow up. Clint Eastwood's character is a Korean War veteran who was a part of the U.S. Army Rangers. What's almost scary is that in high school my neighbor, Mr. Parsons, more or less took me under his wing as well. Mr. Parsons is a U.S. Air Force veteran who served during Vietnam. He went to some of my football games and acted as a sort of mentor for me while in high school.

There's so many messages in the movie, so many things I could write about, I wish I could just write about all of them. However, I think the most important theme of the movie is violence begets violence and it really takes the bigger person to stand above it all. It's truly a movie everyone should see.