Clint plays a grizzled, mean old man, tough as nails as a way of coping with the horrors he has seen, and has done, over fifty years prior in the Korean War. He’s also bigoted and racist, the greatest deadly sin in our day and age. The movie shows his turn of heart as he comes quite close to a young Asian immigrant boy through a series of unlikely events. There’s a couple of squeamish bits of bloodshed, gang-related violence, plenty of “real-world” vulgarity, most of it unrepentant. You’ll think you can predict the ending, but you won’t be able to; this is actually a Hollywood movie where some degree of thought went into the screenplay.
[Minor spoilers to follow …]
What struck me most during the movie was how I reacted to it. In our culture we have been conditioned to fight back, no, indoctrinated might be a better word, and to cheer on the man who fights back. When a fist is thrown our way, we expect to throw a fist back. One thrown harder, heavier, badder, to teach the transgressor a lesson to never mess with us again. We’ve been wired to desire this more than anything else. This desire probably goes back millions of years and is hardwired in our brains. But even as recently as the television show you watched last night (or even the news program they glued you to), you saw how right and just and even noble it is to fight back and hit back harder.
What about this thorn in our sides: But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well. If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles. (Matthew 5:39-41)
Hmmm? What say you?
This is arguably the most difficult teaching in all of Christianity. How difficult it is to put this into practice! How difficult even mentally, in our thoughts, as opposed to actually physically manifesting such an attitude in our daily lives. Christ was the only One who did put it into practice, in complete fulfillment, as far as I’m aware of. Perhaps some of the saints, too. However, I know that I fall short, terribly and despicably short. Watching Gran Torino I felt my pulse quicken and noticed my expectant glee awaiting to see the bad guys get their just comeuppance. Hopefully bloody and violent, based on what they did to the good guys. But what Clint Eastwood’s character finally does is so completely shocking, I think, so unexpected, that it is just this discord in our thinking – the discord between our higher, spiritual selves and our lower, baser selves – that the writers and most likely Clint himself wants us to meditate on.
The point that I have the most trouble with is that to a certain extent the Angry Retaliatory Fist is needed in our world. Think about the response to 9/11 – specifically, the invasion of Afghanistan and the overthrow of the Taliban. Was this response not warranted, not just? Does it not fit in accord with Church teaching of Just War (which goes back to St. Augustine in the 4th century)? And what of the famous line (C.S. Lewis, maybe?) of the author who realizes he and his family are only able to sleep peaceful and safe at night because some very dangerous men guard our perimeters, ready and willing to do great harm to those who would want to kill us?
It’s tough; I don’t claim to have any answers to this. We may never have this side of eternity, either. But I think it’s worth it to think upon every now and then, and that’s why Gran Torino is a film worth seeing.
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