Clint Eastwood's (as ever, tough but fair?, a hard outer misanthropic shell with morally superior filling) character, Walt, speaks in nothing but growls and racial slurs, even to long time friends. So when he comes upon some black guys while cruising his neighborhood in Detroit and the most famous slur of all never occurs to him, it's a chickening-out that only makes the rest of his grumping all the more unbelievable and pointless.
Unbelievable would be fine. Realism is not required of a film, but Eastwood always tries for it (or at least doesn't venture into any worthwhile fantasy) and fails in the goofiest ways. The boxer's family in Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby was just a little more cartoonishly evil than Walt's family here. The heartless greed of Walt's granddaughter asking for his car after he dies is some heavy-handed cheese that will not be outdone until the shot of Eastwood in his crucifixion pose complete with stigmata blood.
Our boy Clint keeps presenting these clumsy, preachy, ham-fisted, self-righteous hero/martyr death wishes with confidence. I blame Hollywood. I don't think anyone gives the poor guy an honest opinion. Take for example Roger Ebert's glowing review of Gran Torino in which he proclaims Clint Eastwood a star and then gives a plot synopsis. It's like a fifth-grader's book report on a biography of Angelina Jolie, but that's cool. We all have our weaknesses. I never saw a Dirty Harry movie so maybe I'm missing a loyalty to Clint that everyone else has. Of his films I've only seen Million Dollar Baby and Gran Torino, but they both have: no real aesthetic value (and no, I'm not going to count the fact that Million Dollar Baby was in black and white), implausible characters, super cliché character development, and a story arc and resolution everyone sees a mile away.
What was the point of this movie? I believe Eastwood wants the world to be a better place, for everyone to do the right thing and to see beyond race and differences, but what is he doing? Does he really think he's capable of teaching the rest of us a lesson? What is it? This seems to be a conservative version of the liberal multiculturalism that we've been force fed for a while now. Does Eastwood think that we're missing the Republican half of the after-school-specials-as-film library? Art isn't a moral lesson and Gran Torino is not either. Three thumbs down. One for the film, one just for his song over the closing credits (yes, Clint Eastwood composes music now- and sings), and one for all the Hollywood sheep who love their industry's celebrities more than good movies.
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