Over his career, Clint Eastwood has time and time again established himself as probably the best anti-hero in cinematic history, whether it be a rogueish cowboy (Sergio Leone movies), a dirty harry (all those dirty harry’s), a fake dirty harry (the gauntlet), another cowboy (Unforgiven) or an angry old man carved  out of drift wood (pretty much everything since 1995), he’s proven himself capable of advancing his badassery to deeper and more intelligent levels.

This movie is no exception and may very well be his most nuanced starring role.

As Walt Kowalski, Eastwood is a cantankerous old coot, going beyond standard old man stuff and actively threatening kids in his rough neighborhood. I don’t want to give anything away, but basically he starts off incredibly (and hilariously) bigoted against basically every minority and ends up as a foul mouthed cuddle-bear.

The acting is all around superb, with the possible exception of the other lead’s sister Sue. Thao, Eastwood’s pseudo-apprentice and friend in the film is also rather good, his mannerisms change as he becomes more confident, breaking Hmong expectations…oh….right…Hmong. Hmong is a group of mountain people from southeast Asian, y’know, Vietnam, Laos, China, all that jazz, anyways, Thao grows throughout the film with a similar arc to Walt, starting as almost feminine, he learns what it is to be a (really, really old) man.

Eastwood, that smug bastard also wrote and directed…and it’s rather hard to criticize anything he does.

Through his performance, on and off screen, he proves he has what it takes to be a octogenarian curmudgeon brand of action star, threatening people he’s more than four times older than and being entirely convincing while doing so.

Dear movie, you were awesome!

Rating: ★★★★½

PS, if you see this film you WILL learn so, so many slurs against Asian folk…the funniest of which is Dragon lady.

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