A swan song to Clint Eastwood’s five-decade-long acting career, Gran Torino is a fitting and entertaining, if uneven farewell that posits a kind of ‘what if’ imagining of Dirty Harry’s retirement years.78-year-old Eastwood is Walt Kowalski, a cranky and racist Korean war vet who involuntarily becomes the guardian angel for his neighbours – a Hmong family he’d rather have nothing to do with. Anyone expecting a revenge B-movie – like one the trailer is cut to resemble –won’t have their cheap genre thrills catered to here; Gran Torino is essentially a buddy comedy, hinging on Walt’s growing bond with youngest of the family, Thao, who’s forced, as reparation, to work off a petty crime. It’s a familiar, classical arc – if not always believably or subtly applied here – gradually toning down Walt’s unchecked bigotry as he gets to know his neighbours. Eastwood’s leisurely pacing and old-fashioned direction does little to mask the film’s shortcomings, chiefly the wooden acting of the mostly amateur Hmong cast, but the man himself is enough to see the drama through to the end. It’s amusing, though also a bit uncomfortable, to watch him spout non-stop racial slurs, and his trademark scowl still stings whenever it emerges from his leathery face.