Gran Torino

Gran Torino is a movie about Walt Kowalski. He is an old war veteran who just lost his wife, he live in a neighborhood where most of the families are from different countries and have many different cultures. Walt is not happy about this, and don’t like these people and call them names. He is also in a bad relationship with his family, he think his grandchildren are rude and his son and the sons wife tries to put him in a home for elderly people. So in the beginning he seems like a pretty grumpy, racist old man who just wants to be left alone. 

But the movie isn’t just about Walt; it is about the relationship between Walt and the Mhong family nest door. Mhong is a people who live in parts of Japan, China and Laos. The boy in the family, Thao one day meets a gang his cousin is a part of, and get in some trouble with them. The gang makes Thao try to steel Walt’s Gran Torino.

The daughter of the Mhong family, Sue invites Walt to a party at their house, and he realizes he have more in common with them than his own family. Later Thao works for Walt as an apology for trying to steel his car. The time they spend during this period make him starting to like Thao, and he slowly is starting to accept the Mhongs, and he even helps Thao get a job. But when Walt threatens one of the gang members after they messed with Thao one day, they come to the Mhongs house and starts shooting. They also beat up Sue. Now Walt start to realize what it takes to be able to stop them, and he starts planning. So one night, he lock Thao in the cellar and go to the gang members house, and when he pretend to take out a gun, while it’s really just a lighter, the gang members shoot him. And since he made sure there was enough witnesses the gang members go to prison.

The movie is a good movie about different cultures, racism and that you might have more in common with people from other cultures than you think. It’s about learning to accept these people, even though they look a bit different and have different traditions.