American politics
Democracy in America

All-American muscle

What Clint Eastwood's new movie says about America

THE holidays are always a good time to catch a movie, and I'll be curious to hear what you all think of the new Clint Eastwood movie, "Gran Torino". It's heavy-handed—take a bold guess about whether anyone's respect is grudgingly earned—but checks a lot of topical boxes. It's about a veteran (check) in a delapidated town (check) in Michigan (check). Being from the Greatest Generation he finds his Boomer sons contemptible (check) and is especially annoyed by his materialistic Millennial granddaughter who just wants to talk on her iPhone (check). He used to work in the Ford plant (check) and now sits on his porch fuming as immigrants (check) move in next door (he's racist (check)). I quite liked it:

On a side note, it's one of the first productions that moved to Michigan after the state passed an extremely generous incentives programme of tax breaks to lure filmmakers.

UPDATE: There was no coordination between this blog post and the ads on the main site; just a coincidence, though I agree it "looks a little cheesy", as Mr Stevenson puts it in the comments. I actually watched the movie (and wrote this post) a couple of weeks ago, but was waiting to put it up until the movie was in general release. For what it's worth I think about two-thirds of my friends thought the movie itself was pretty cheesy. I agree that it's a little heavy-handed, but enjoyed it overall.

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