Gran Torino vs Hancock

In Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood plays a crazy old dangerous bigot, and I can’t decide which I admire most: that Eastwood is comfortable playing his age (maybe more than any actor currently working), or that he’s so fully embraced playing that crazy dangerous bigot. A lot of movies take someone awful and cute them up. Jack Nicholson is a total dick in As Good As It Gets, but they never let us forget for a moment that it was Jack, and who doesn’t love Jack? Eastwood plays Walt, a Korean War vet whose wife has just died (by the end of the movie, you’ll be wondering what she must have been like). He stomps around the house, drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, snapping at his kids (who have it coming, by the way), and being an all-around jerk to his Hmong neighbors. This is key: he’s got a dog he loves, that he’s quietly sweet to.  A crazy old dangerous bigot with a dog he loves is capable of being, perhaps, a tad less, you know, crazy, dangerous, bigoted, etc.

Clint Eastwood gives one of the strongest performances of his career in Gran Torino. And since he’s already carrying around the legend of himself, and all this is happening in a movie he directed, and directing is his true talent in the first place, well then he probably doesn’t even need costars in the first place, let alone costars that are any good. I’m not saying they aren’t good. I’m just saying that if you think they’re bad, you still might love Gran Torino, because the idea of Clint Eastwood as myth, as someone who represents a time and place and type (and boy does he; in Gran Torino, he literally growls), then the blanding of pretty much everyone in his path is a guarantee. I think the supporting cast of Gran Torino is mostly good, but I also think it matters zero. Clint is playing the Greatest Generation in the body of one angry man, and in this movie, with the car and the gun and the dog, it would take practically Elvis Presley circa 1957 to muster much of a distraction, and that’s if he brought a thousand screaming girls. Clint Eastwood is goddamn ten feet tall in Gran Torino. He makes a gun with his fingers, and people flinch. People in the audience.

You might have noticed that I’m skirting the plot of Gran Torino a bit. That’s because prior to seeing the movie, I was mistaken about the plot, and once it got going, I loved it. Okay, I liked it, but that’s good too, right? It’s a little like The Brave One, only by the end of that one I was a little embarrassed for the star, and that never happens here.

Hancock is a lot like Gran Torino. It’s got a reluctant hero who’s been around a while and doesn’t like the changes he sees. Oh, and he’s a first class asshole. Characters tell Hancock that throughout the movie; even little kids. And they’re right. And for those first few scenes, when Hancock is Superman as Douchebag, it’s big-time fun. Hancock exists in our world, basically. He’s the only human with powers (well, okay, that’s probably been spoiled by now, but go with it). Hancock can fly, has super-strength, amnesia and a chip on his shoulder. He’ll save the day, but not without creating thousands of dollars in property damage, not to mention entire neighborhoods of hurt feelings. Instead of having a spunky reporter on his side, Hancock has to contend with the Youtube generation following his every social blunder. People need Hancock, kind of, but they also hate him. That is, until he meets a PR guy played by Jason Bateman. Hancock saved his life, and as payback, Bateman decides to rehab Hancock’s image. He gets a superhero suit, lessons in manners, and stops drinking. More importantly, he gets to know Bateman’s wimpy little movie kid, and his hot movie wife, played by Charlize Theron. It’s cool that Hancock has such a strong supporting cast, but the minute they’re introduced, the problems start. Hancock gets more serious, and starts trying to teach its main character, and us, lessons about life and humanity. What started as a rich satire eventually becomes exactly what I thought it was spoofing. The Hancock from the beginning of the movie would have hated this kind of thing, yet there he is, at the center of it all, at the end of the movie, trying not to cry.

Hancock was directed by Peter Berg, who, like Clint Eastwood (and Jon Favreau), is debatably better at directing than acting. The special effects are excellent, and funny when necessary, and of course, Will Smith is perfect casting as a smart-ass superhero. The ending, which introduces Hancock’s origin and establishes a couple rules, tosses them out the window almost immediately, along with the wit. That’s too bad. Berg should watch Gran Torino. Walt becomes a hero, yet never changes his true nature, and the movie, from start to finish, maintains its tone. That’s even more impressive when you realize that Gran Torino’s only special effect is that finger gun.

Gran Torino: B+

Hancock: C+