Gran Torino
US 2008
Starring: Clint Eastwood,
Bee Vang, Ahney Hir
Director: Clint Eastwood
Doubt
US 2008
Starring: Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams
Director: John Patrick Shanley
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
US 2008
Documentary with: Steve “Lips” Kudlow, Robb Reiner
Director: Sacha Gervasi
FOR what he has said will be his final appearance in front of the camera (although he still intends to direct, with a Nelson Mandela bio-pic starring Morgan Freeman in the offing), Clint Eastwood has chosen grumpy old man drama Gran Torino as his acting swansong. This is his second star vehicle to be named after an automobile (the other was 1990’s Pink Cadillac, which flopped), and one that draws on his extensive back catalogue. The Beguiled, Dirty Harry and The Outlaw Josey Wales are all referenced in various scenes.
Eastwood’s character, Walt Kowalski, is a Korean War veteran with some bad memories and a racist streak. He does not much care that his Michigan neighbourhood has become a haven for immigrants from Laos and Cambodia. He is also in mourning for his dead wife and has little time for his money-grubbing family. Walt does not just curse, he growls. The sound from his throat appears to be filling in for the loyal dog that lies silently by his feet when he sits drinking beer on the front porch or the bonnet of his 1972 Gran Torino, which sits in his garage, preserved in its pristine 1970s glory. Clearly, a film that uses both a car and a dog as a metaphor for a man offers one symbol too far, but this is a film precisely about symbolic gestures.
Working from a script by Nick Schenk (from a story co-written by Dave Johannson), this is a familiar tale of an unlikely father-and-son relationship. Walt’s teenage neighbour, Tao (Bee Vang), tries to steal the Gran Torino by way of a gang initiation ceremony. After Walt stands up to the gang and earlier saves Tao’s sister, Sue (Ahney Hir), from the aggressive attentions of some local youths, he agrees to let Tao work for him. In practice, this means fixing up other houses in the neighbourhood to make them less of an eyesore, and it is not long before Walt is encouraging Tao to get a job in construction and teaching him to curse other people in the middle-American blue collar style. Unfortunately, Tao’s tool belt attracts the ire of the gang he had spurned. Events then spiral out of control.
Eastwood draws a fine line between celebrating Walt’s bigotry and offering a critique. Broadly, he gets the balance right for the purpose of mainstream entertainment. There is fun to be had from clusters of Asian women bringing Walt hot dishes after he stood up for their community and from his sparky relationship with the feisty Sue, who is equal to his epithets. Some scenes border on unintentional hilarity, as when Walt shows Tao his tool collection.
Finally, this is a film that has a larger meaning than just the curtain call of a genuine screen icon. It is about the acceptance and appreciation of other cultures and their contribution to the United States (Walt has the American flag outside his home) and of the primacy of the rule of law. Clunky, casually paced, obvious but entertaining, this is Eastwood’s growl of support to Barack Obama.
Doubt adequately describes the emotion writer-director John Patrick Shanley had in adapting his award-winning play about possible sexual indiscretion in a New York Catholic school in 1964 for the big screen. Should he open it up to include more of the pupils or should keep it tight? The original play ran 80 minutes without an interval. In the end, he does a bit of both and you roll your eyes to the heavens in frustration.
First, the good news. Doubt features the most substantial performance in a dramatic role for many years by Meryl Streep, whose highly affected acting style is well-suited to this role. She plays Sister Aloysius, the principal of St Benedict’s school, who learns that her superior, Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), summoned the school’s only African-American pupil (a 12-year old boy) to the rectory and left him with the smell of alcohol on his breath. The accusation is of sexual molestation. Sister Aloysius does not have proof, but only her “certainty” and the testimony of the boy’s teacher, Sister James (Amy Adams, radiating trust and innocence).
Hoffman is no equal to Streep, but how he roars. Father Flynn, who takes a potentially over-solicitous interest in the boy, denies any wrong doing but does not spell out what he did with him. His reticence, which suggests an element of guilt, is his weakness. However, he questions Sister Aloysius’ own moral high ground. She is a strict disciplinarian, who nevertheless, is protective of the other nuns, notably Sister Florence who is losing her sight.
The film falls neatly into two halves. The first is opened out, so that we do indeed learn about the children, with their interests being a catalyst for the teachers’ actions. Sister Aloysius confiscates a radio with an earpiece and uses it herself; the hypocrisy is lost on her. In the second half, you sense that Shanley has preserved the big confrontations of the play in their theatrical form, to the extent that the drama is over all too quickly.
A central line in the play – “To confront wrong doing, you have to step away from the church” – gives the film contemporary relevance. In other words, you have to lie to combat a perceived evil. We think of Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. Yet there is more going on: the difficulty of operating within a patriarchy, the loss of idealism following John F Kennedy’s assassination alluded to in Father Flynn’s opening sermon. In its best scene, it explores the necessity of suffering which is at the heart of Roman Catholicism. The boy’s mother (Viola Davis) is prepared to tolerate what is happening to her son because it is the least bad option. The writing and acting make you believe in her choice. Overall, Doubt is a stimulating film, but not a great one and leaves a feeling of anti-climax rather than ambiguity.
Patrick Mulcahy
WITH suspiciously perfect timing, the announcement that legendary spoof heavy-metal band Spinal Tap are reforming (for their first musical output since 1992) came only a couple of weeks before the British release of Anvil! The Story of Anvil – a film impossible to discuss without reference to Rob Reiner’s 1984 cult-classic “rockumentary” This Is Spinal Tap.
But Anvil! is very much for real, the latest work by acclaimed British documentarian – and self-confessed Anvil freak – Sacha Gervasi. As are Anvil themselves, tracing their roots back to 1973 Toronto where school-friends Steve “Lips” Kudlow (vocals) and Robb Reiner (drums) bonded over their love of hard rock. And yes, “Robb Reiner’ really is his name – a coincidence that’s led conspiracy theorists to suspect Anvil! of being an even more elaborate confection than Spinal Tap. One can almost see what they mean, as the shenanigans depicted here are as wild and extreme as any parody.
But the way we see Kudlow and Reiner age via copious archive footage – including their very brief mid-1980s heyday – remains beyond even Hollywood’s CGI-wizards, And the fraternal bond between Kudlow and Reiner – complete with the stormy rows and tearful reconciliations familiar to all brothers – is also impossible to fake. Indeed, for such an amusing and often hilarious movie, Anvil! can also be surprisingly touching. Even audiences who know little about heavy-metal and care less may find themselves engaged and engrossed. All the way, indeed, up to a genuinely suspenseful climax involving an unlikely return to something approaching the big-time.
An optimistic Japanese fan books the lads to play the Tokyo stadium which, in 1984, provided their finest hour when they shared an exclusive bill (“Super Rock Japan”) with the likes of Bon Jovi, Whitesnake and The Scorpions. With Darren Aronofsky’s (fictional) masterpiece The Wrestler still kicking around our screens, these are clearly boom times for 80s revivalism.
Ultimately an affectionate paean to the persistence and commitment of a couple of old-school blokes who refuse to accept that their time has passed and the world has moved on, Anvil! – while no one’s idea of a groundbreaking masterpiece in terms of form or cinematic artistry – has decidedly stronger claims to the title “feel-good movie of the decade” than, say, a certain recent, over-hyped release set in Mumbai and directed by Danny Boyle.
Neil Young
