Possibly With a Pabst in Hand

For anyone that hasn't seen Gran Torino:

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

Consider yourself warned. Please go see it already (and come back and read this later).

This post is a response to Brandon's post: bless us clint for we have sinned

I think that what I loved most about the ending is that I wasn't expecting it. In retrospect, maybe it was obvious. But, at the time, I expected Clint/Walt to go in with guns blazing, "fucking badass" style, AND I REALLY WANTED THE SATISFACTION OF THAT VIOLENT CONQUEST. What we get instead is a form of classic Christian non-violence, so confrontational in its pacifism that the world's only conceivable response is exaggerated violence.

The irony is that the one destroyed by this violence, in a peculiar way, becomes the destroyer of the violent and the world is reconciled so that men may live in peace.

And that, I agree, properly understood, constitutes the true meaning of "fucking badass," if, indeed, that term can be redeemed at all.

Eastwood's melodrama may not be the strongest film narrative of the year, but it is the year's strongest (and yes, most obvious) filmic gospel parable.

I can only agree that it's Eastwood's touch that raises the obvious and brazen religious symbolism from rehashed tripe into something profoundly moving.

For another opinion about the movie as a whole, especially the racist implications, go read Utterly Offensive.