Gran Torino

It is a flawed movie, vastly overwritten, with characters pointing things out that we've long worked out for ourselves. Still, the self-referentiality of Eastwood's performance ensures that Gran Torino isn't just absorbing, but also moving.

Seeing Eastwood ward off young gangsters was odd... well, but he pulled it off enough.

Though the film feels like a requiem, Kowalski's heart is still defiantly beating.

Seeing the new inclusive Clint shows an old dog can learn new tricks. But like Walt himself, I can't help but prefer Dirty Harry to Caring Clint any day.

Gran Torino is a nuanced picture with incredible heart, humor, and melodramatic themes of acceptance and long-overdue redemption.

Its characters find peace through acts of openness, understanding and sacrifice, and it is these arcs that allow the audience to feel a sense of cathartic peace ourselves.

The originality of the film is minute, while the story offers few surprises.

The film is clunky in places... but it is also warm, funny and moving, and genuinely thought-provoking about no end of hot-button contemporary issues, from race and class, to ageing and masculinity.