Clint Eastwood started out as the ultimate old Grumpy in this movie and at the end became the hero he doesn’t even know he’s capable of becoming.

Walt lives next to a Hmong family and a bad neighborhood in Michigan. He didn’t like the Chinks/Gooks next door to him. He stuck out and taught the neighbor’s kid, Thao, to become a man after his failed gang initiation attempt to steal his treasured Gran Torino car. Because of his “Dirty Harry” approach to dealing with the gangs, he became the center of the gang war. In his journey, he came to appreciate the Hmong people around him and was able to abandon his bigotry deeply rooted since he served in the Korean War and his working in the American auto industry.

At the end, he faced the end of his life to illness and decided to become the real hero saving all the Hmong lives by becoming the shooting target for the gangs that resulted in their arrests.

This movie was a heart-warming act that turns a bigot/recist into a hero for the people he had hatred for. This is an excellent movie that has the Gran Torino car as the symbolism for an old, inflexible man, and yet with deep sense of value and honor.