Clint Eastwood just keeps popping out great films, and Gran Torino – like the great ‘Mystic River’ before it – is one of his best. Unlike ‘Mystic River’, however, Gran Torino has some emotional reward in waiting for those willing to go on the film’s rather harrowing journey.

Eastwood himself plays the part of an old chap whose wife has recently died. He’s a bitter old coot whose grown-up children are superficial and uncaring, and who takes great umbrage at his neighbourhood having been overrun by Asian immigrants. He’s an old-fashioned American with a flat flapping from his house, and one with a sometimes shocking residual racism, perhaps in part from having served in the Korean war in the 1950s.

When youth gangs attack his adolescent (Asian) neighbour and Eastwood turns vigilante, the Asian community shower him with gifts and get the boy to work for him for free. Naturally, while Eastwood initially resists, a bond is formed and the old man even attends a party, an amazing seen in which he’s such a fish out of water that you could cut the air with a knife.

This is a finely-etched drama with a story that needs telling more than ever in a world where old-fashioned mono-cultural ways are clashing with immigrant cultures around the world, and where youth gangs are running wild and respect for elders is diminishing.

Despite the old man’s racialism, he’s basically a great guy and proves it by sticking up for what he knows to be right.

And the Gran Torino of the title? The old man used to work on the car production line, and he helped to build the 1972 Gran Torino that sits sparkling in his drive way, a symbol of traditional values.

Easily one of my DVDs of the year already, Gran Torino is a masterpiece of film-making, and it’s also courageous for not being “PC” by avoiding the old man’s less savoury characteristics. Applause also to Eastwood for his great performance of a bitter old man. Powerful.

The extras don’t have much to do with the story, if anything, but will appeal to those who are interested in the Gran Torino itself. One looks at ‘manhood as reflected in American car culture’, and the other visits Detroit and a vintage car event. GARY STEEL

5 Stars