Critical response
Rotten Tomatoes reports that 81% of 237 surveyed critics gave the film positive write-ups; the average score is 7.10/10. The site's consensus states: "Though a minor entry in Eastwood's body of work, Gran Torino is nevertheless a humorous, touching, and intriguing old-school parable."[41] At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 72 based on 34 reviews.[42] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.[43]
After seeing the film, The New York Times described the requiem tone captured by the film, calling it as "a sleek, muscle car of a movie made in the USA, in that industrial graveyard called Detroit". Manohla Dargis compared Eastwood's presence on film to Dirty Harry and the Man with No Name, stating: "Dirty Harry is back, in a way, in Gran Torino, not as a character, but as a ghostly presence. He hovers in the film, in its themes and high-caliber imagery, and of course, most obviously, in Mr. Eastwood's face. It is a monumental face now, so puckered and pleated that it no longer looks merely weathered, as it has for decades, but seems closer to petrified wood."[44]
The Los Angeles Times also praised Eastwood's performance and credibility as an action hero at the age of 78. Kenneth Turan said of Eastwood's performance, "It is a film that is impossible to imagine without the actor in the title role. The notion of a 78-year-old action hero may sound like a contradiction in terms, but Eastwood brings it off, even if his toughness is as much verbal as physical. Even at 78, Eastwood can make 'Get off my lawn' sound as menacing as 'Make my day', and when he says 'I blow a hole in your face and sleep like a baby', he sounds as if he means it".[45]
Roger Ebert wrote that the film is "about the belated flowering of a man's better nature. And it's about Americans of different races growing more open to one another in the new century."[46] Sang Chi and Emily Moberg Robinson, editors of Voices of the Asian-American and Pacific Islander Experience: Volume 1, said that within the mainstream media, the film received "critical acclaim" "for its nuanced portrayal of Asian Americans."[47] Louisa Schein and Va-Megn Thoj, authors of "Gran Torino's Boys and Men with Guns: Hmong Perspective," said that the mainstream critical response was "centered on Eastwood's character and viewed the film mainly as a vision of multicultural inclusion and understanding."[48]
Nicole Sperling, columnist for Entertainment Weekly, called it a drama with "the commercial hook of a genre film" and described it further as "a meditation on tolerance wrapped in the disguise of a movie with a gun-toting Clint Eastwood and a cool car".[49] Chi and Robinson said that within the Asian-American community, some criticized "depictions of Hmong men" and "the archetypical white savior trope that permeated the film".[47]
Reception in relation to the Hmong
Clint Eastwood's decision to cast Hmong actors, including amateur actors, received a positive reception in Hmong communities.[50] Tou Ger Xiong, a Hmong storyteller and performance artist from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area who had auditioned for a role in the film, said that he had respect for the film because the producers actually cast Hmong instead of asking other Asian-Americans to mimic Hmong.[4] Xiong also argued "First things first, let's get our foot in the door. Complain later."[4] Dyane Hang Garvey, who served as a cultural consultant for the film production, said that the film was not intended to be a documentary on the Hmong people and that it positively highlights, as paraphrased by Laura Yuen of Minnesota Public Radio, "the close-knit nature of the Hmong community in Detroit".[4] Doua Moua, a Hmong actor in the film, said that he had no regrets in playing a gang member, because, in Yuen's words, "gangs consumed his brother's life while they were growing up in Saint Paul".[4] Moua added that many first generation Hmong are affected by gangs and drift into gangs due to a lack of father figures.[4]
Louisa Schein, a Rutgers University anthropologist who is an expert on the Hmong culture, approved the concept of Hmong achieving visibility in the popular culture of the United States, but believed that the film may be promoting out of date stereotypes of the Hmong. Schein said that her Hmong friends were "touched" by the film's portrayal of Hmong culture redeeming and reaching out to Walt Kowalski.[50]
Schein further added that the film seemed to give little prominence to the history of the Hmong, and that only two male Hmong, Thao and a gang member, were given depth in the story. Schein said: "I feel a lot of the plot about the Eastwood character is driven by the fact that he is a veteran. Yet there is no possibility for representing the fact that the Hmong were veterans too."[50] An individual established a blog, eastwoodmovie-hmong.com, documenting what the author believed to be cultural inaccuracies of the film's depiction of the Hmong.[7]
David Brauer of MinnPost said that some Hmong liked Gran Torino and that many believed that the film was offensive.[32] In 2009, actor Bee Vang said that he was satisfied with the outcome of the film.[51] Brauer said that in an opinion editorial released in 2011, Vang "isn't kind to the Clint Eastwood film".[32] Krissy Reyes-Ortiz of The Bottom Line of the University of California Santa Barbara said, based on Vang's testimony in a 2011 program, that "Though many of the people who have seen the film may have gotten a sense of satisfaction and joy from seeing that Walt overcame his racism, the people who acted as the Hmong members in the movie did not" and that "They were offended by the traces of racism that were included in the movie and that they experienced themselves on set".[28] Some Hmong on internet message boards had posted criticisms of the film.[4] In 2020, Vang said, "Hmong around the country were furious about its negative stereotypes and cultural distortions" and that they confronted him when he spoke at events.[32] Vang added that he engaged in "explaining my obligation as an actor while also recognizing that, as a Hmong-American, I didn't feel that I could own the lines I was uttering."[32] Vang has stated that he was uncomfortable with the reaction of white audiences to the film, finding their laughter at the playing off of racial slurs as humor "unnerving" and "one more excuse for ignoring white supremacy and racism."[52]
Philip W. Chung of AsianWeek said that Eastwood, portraying a white man, was the "main weapon" of the film even though screenwriter Nick Schenk "does his best to portray Hmong culture and the main Hmong characters with both depth and cultural sensitivity".[53] Chung argued that "Gran Torino might have been another "'white man saves the day' story" but that "What Eastwood has really created is not a story about the white man saving the minority (though it can be read on that level and I'm sure some will) but a critical examination of an iconic brand of white macho maleness that he played a significant part in creating."[53]
Awards and nominations
Gran Torino was recognized by the American Film Institute as one of the Ten Best Films of 2008.[54] Clint Eastwood's performance has also garnered recognition. He won an award for Best Actor from the National Board of Review,[55] he was nominated for the Broadcast Film Critics Association (Critics' Choice Awards) and by the Chicago Film Critics Association Awards for Best Actor.[56][57] An original song from the film, "Gran Torino" (performed by Jamie Cullum), was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.[58] The Art Directors Guild nominated Gran Torino in the contemporary film category.[59]
The film, however, was ignored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at the 81st Academy Awards when it was not nominated for a single Oscar, which led to heated criticism from many who felt that the Academy had also deliberately snubbed Revolutionary Road and Changeling (which Eastwood also directed) from the five major categories.[60][61]
In 2010, the film was named Best Foreign Film at the César Awards in France.[62]
Derivative works
Mark D. Lee and Cedric N. Lee, two Hmong filmmakers from Detroit, directed a documentary called Gran Torino: Next Door, about how Bee Vang and Ahney Her were chosen for their roles in the film and the Hmong actors' off-set activities. It was released on Blu-ray.[63] Vang acted in a YouTube parody of one scene in Gran Torino, titled "Thao Does Walt: Lost Scenes from Gran Torino."[64] The YouTube parody addresses a scene involving a barbershop, and the views of masculinity in the original scene.[65]
