This week I have stumbled across something better - and I trust and hope - legal. The site streams current movie releases and after enjoying Frost/Nixon last week, I hit on another I would have taken in had the local cinema not closed down.
Its a Clint Eastwood piece called Gran Torino. Eastwood is the central character, Walt Kolowski, a former Korean War veteran, recently widowed and aware now that the world is very different to the one in which he worked, married and raised a family. The Eastwood persona at the start of the film is very much an older and angrier version of Harry Callahan from Dirty Harry. He is racially intolerant - not a great advantage in a neighbourhood dominated by immigrants - but the story focuses on the unlikely relationship between Eastwood and his neighbour's son, Thao, who is part of a sizeable Hmong immigrant community where he lives.
At one level the film is about racial tolerance - although not delivered with the power of the very wonderful Crash. But its real power is as a story of individual redemption. Eastwood's character - supported more than he thought he would ever need by a young Catholic priest - puts his anger to one side and focuses on giving Thao a chance in life that would otherwise have been denied him. In turn the anger that consumes Walt is replaced by a real sense of purpose and, I would guess, inner peace. Eastwood is now nearly 80 so he may not have too many more films in him. But this is a wonderful piece of story-telling and one with a spiritual dimension sadly missing from so much of what turns up in the cinema these days.
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