Tania Modleski, author of Clint Eastwood and Male Weepies, said, 'or many reviewers, Gran Torino represents the final step in Eastwood's repudiation of the Dirty Harry persona. It is a monumental face now, so puckered and pleated that it no longer looks merely weathered, as it has for decades, but seems closer to petrified wood.' He hovers in the film, in its themes and high-caliber imagery, and of course, most obviously in Mr. Manohla Dargis compared Eastwood's presence on film to Dirty Harry and the Man with No Name, stating, 'Dirty Harry is back, in a way, in Gran Torino, not as a character but as a ghostly presence.

Walt thwarts the theft and subsequently develops a relationship with the boy and his family.īiographer Marc Eliot called Eastwood's role 'an amalgam of the Man with No Name, Dirty Harry, and William Munny, here, aged and cynical, but willing and able to fight on whenever the need arose'. Walt's young neighbor, Thao Vang Lor, is pressured into stealing Walt's prized 1972 Ford Gran Torino by his cousin for his initiation into a gang. Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a recently widowed Korean War veteran alienated from his family and angry at the world. Influence on other productions Sin City: That Yellow Bastard Įastwood returned to acting after a four-year self-imposed hiatus in this 2008 film, which he also directed, produced, and partly scored with his son Kyle and Jamie Cullum. Reception Critical and public response Year Harry's catch phrase in this movie was 'You're shit out of luck'.Īfter this film, Eastwood retired from playing the Dirty Harry character, as he felt his age (58 in 1988) would make Harry a parody.Ĭast and crew Cast Character Someone tries to rig the game by killing the celebrities on one player's list. Harry finds that he is among the subjects of a dead pool, a game betting on deaths of celebrities. The Dead Pool (1988) was directed by Buddy Van Horn.

Harry the dirty dog 1956