Gran Torino

Gran Torino is a 2008 American drama film directed and produced by Clint Eastwood, who also starred in the film. This was Eastwood's first starring role since 2004's Million Dollar Baby. The film features a large Hmong American cast (the first time for an American mainstream film), as well as one of Eastwood's younger sons, Scott. Eastwood's oldest son, Kyle, composed the film's score with Michael Stevens, while Jamie Cullum and Clint Eastwood (in-character as Kowalski) provide the theme song. Set in Highland Park, Michigan, the story follows Walt Kowalski, a recently widowed Korean War veteran alienated from his family and angry at the world whose young neighbor, Thao Vang Lor, is pressured by his cousin into trying to steal Walt's prized 1972 Ford Torino for his initiation into a gang - Walt thwarts the theft and subsequently develops a relationship with the boy and his family. Gran Torino opened in a limited theatrical release in the United States on December 12, 2008, before expanding wide on January 9, 2009. It grossed $270 million worldwide, making it Eastwood's second highest-grossing film to-date. The film received generally positive reviews from critics for Eastwood's direction and performance; within the Hmong community in the United States, the film was generally praised but also received criticism for its cultural inaccuracies. Plot Cantankerous, somewhat prejudiced Korean War veteran and retired Ford factory worker Walt Kowalski is widowed after 50 years of marriage. His aging neighborhood in Highland Park in Metro Detroit was formerly populated by working-class white families but has become filled with gang violence and poor southeast Asian immigrants, including Walt's next-door neighbors, the Vang Lor family. Adding to his isolation, Walt is emotionally detached from his family; he angrily rejects his son's suggestion he move to a retirement community and lives alone with his elderly labrador, Daisy. A chronic tobacco user, Walt suffers from coughing fits, occasionally with blood, which he conceals from his family. As requested by Walt's late wife, her priest, Father Janovich, tries to comfort Walt and persuade him to go to confession. Despite on multiple occasions being impolitely turned away by Walt, dismissing him as young and inexperienced, Father Janovich repeatedly tries to get through to him. Walt catches Thao Vang Lor attempting to steal his Ford Torino as a coerced initiation into a Hmong gang run by Thao's cousin, "Spider".