Lets see how this goes, am blogging from my phone. Just finished watching Gran Torino, and here’s my knee jerk review.

1. A lot of people in the theater I watched it in enjoyed the racist dialogue and monologues too much for me to fully enjoy watching.

2. There was an oversimplifying of people into good and bad that hurt the character and story development.

3. ***SPOILER*** I think movies with a violent rape related scene shoud come with warning – “This film could trigger survivors!”

That said…

4. Clint Eastwood delivers a fantastic performance, and I appreciate a lot of what he attempted and achieved in creating a film this explicitly about race and culture, especially if the rumors that this his last take at acting are true.

5. The film should come with a required workshop afterwards!

I recommend watching Clint’s body of work if you get a chance, he’s played bastard-heroes of all kinds while advancing a progressive approach behind the scenes and on-screen for years and years.