Am I a Racist? Not Really, Just a Fan of Gran Torino

Saturday night and the new Clint Eastwood movie had just gone nationwide. I arrived late as usual and scurried in under the darkened theater groping man, woman, and elderly woman to find my friends desperately clinging to one of the few empty seats in the break-neck section (you know, right in the front, under the screen; I can count Clive Owen's nose-hairs during the previews).

Luckily, the trailers were full of post-Oscars/pre-Summer Blockbusters that fill out the spring. Snooze.

Black. The movie began. Dirty Harry! Back and surprisingly virile! Watching I thought, "I hope I'm like that when I'm a hundred." I didn't remember him being a war vet, though. Then again, those movies were out before I was born and I've never seen one.

The dude was badass anyway and also, extremely racist. Hell, maybe he was people-ist. If he didn't even like his relatives, what chance does a Hmong family have? Well, that's where the twist came in. After thwarting the gang initiation of Thao (the neighbors' young son) and later threatening the lives of said gang members for tamping down his grass during a scuffle, the family started to treat Clint like the hero he never wanted to be. They showered him with food and gifts.

So what to do when the gang won't leave these poor people alone? That's the question punk.

Eastwood was at the top of his game and this film would be a deserving send-off (could the retirement talk have been a secret bid to add a Best Actor Oscar to the awards wing of his house?). There's complexity to the character of Walt Kowalski and Clint Eastwood showed every facet of it.

The same could not be said about the rest of the untrained cast. Daughter Soo was one-note and Thao put forward the effort but didn't quite make it (especially in one scene in which he is "enraged" and trapped behind a locked door).

The story zippped. It moved almost too quickly as Walt was transformed by his changing environment from one scene to the next. But what was striking, above all, was the humor in this picture. Anyone expecting the somber gravity of Million Dollar Babywill be pleasantly surprised.

Clint Eastwood made racism funny (the frequent laughter was a little unnerving in a mixed crowd). What did Spike Lee have to say?