Grand Torino
It was either yesterday, or on Saturday, that my mother and I watched Grand Torino, a film starring and directed by Clint Eastwood. It was really good, on a par with Invictus, and played totally against type for Clint Eastwood.
The story is set in a neighbourhood that's been taken over by immigrants, in which Clint Eastwood's old man character still lives, having just buried his wife. His family, via his one child, barely care about him and are more interested in the property and his car, a Ford Grand Tornino. In fact, everyone is interested in the car, including the local gangs.
Clint Eastwood's character is an irascible and racist character (there's an awful lot of racial slurring in this film) but he also is fairly decent and gets involved in the neighbour's Hmong family when the daughter nearly gets raped by some gang members. After that, the increasing alienation of his family pushes him to make friends with the neighbour's family, and he takes their eldest boy under his wing, who he caught stealing his car, as part of a gang initiation.
It's a slow film, and it doesn't end the way you expect. But that makes it all the more powerful, and if you want to watch something good and you haven't seen it, you should.
The story is set in a neighbourhood that's been taken over by immigrants, in which Clint Eastwood's old man character still lives, having just buried his wife. His family, via his one child, barely care about him and are more interested in the property and his car, a Ford Grand Tornino. In fact, everyone is interested in the car, including the local gangs.
Clint Eastwood's character is an irascible and racist character (there's an awful lot of racial slurring in this film) but he also is fairly decent and gets involved in the neighbour's Hmong family when the daughter nearly gets raped by some gang members. After that, the increasing alienation of his family pushes him to make friends with the neighbour's family, and he takes their eldest boy under his wing, who he caught stealing his car, as part of a gang initiation.
It's a slow film, and it doesn't end the way you expect. But that makes it all the more powerful, and if you want to watch something good and you haven't seen it, you should.