Gran Torino on DVD

I watched this movie with low expectations, as I wasn't sure how it would compare to the emotional wallop of Million Dollar Baby or the seedy Western misery of Unforgiven.  I've gotta hand it to Clint, though -- he must know how to pick scripts, or how to direct good films from good scripts, or something.  I'm still thinking about this film a couple of days after watching it, which to me is a big plus.  I wasn't particularly drawn to the "ethnic" aspects of the film -- I knew nothing about the Hmong people other than what was told to me in the film, and I wasn't sure I wanted to watch a film that would teach a lesson about the evils of racism, which I'm already pretty well aware of.  I realized, though, in the course of the movie, that the film doesn't really aim to teach a lesson so much as draw on the Clint Eastwood myth to tell a story about modern-day heroism.  I even said to my wife as we were watching, "He's gonna do the Clint Eastwood thing and shoot em all dead," or something like that, only to be proven wrong.  The heroism in this story is that of a stubborn old man who has many flaws, not just racism but also an unforgiving spirit and alcoholism.  All those flaws don't stop him from making a crucial, surprising act of sacrifice at the end of the movie, which redeems him as a person in this life, if not the next.  This sacrifice does not mean that he compromises or grows a heart, which is what I was afraid of, I guess, but it does mean that he has become so involved in people from another culture's lives that he is no longer afraid of the differences.  He has gotten to know them to a certain extent, despite the cultural divide, and he comes to share their struggles -- essentially human struggles for a better life.