Yeah, the connection to Ford, the Michigan license plates, the references to the midwest all point to it not being in California. Yet, as he is looking at the forms after he sees the doctor (while he is talking to his son,) the addess it lists is California. I, therefore, reported it as a goof in IMDB.
Still waiting to hear back from them if they accept it.
And it means that there are plenty of actors who cannot work for him. Apparently, he has no patience for people who can’t get to work and get it done right, quickly. I also understand that he rarely raises his voice.
I admire the hell out of Clint Eastwood. Never met him, but he drove through an intersection in Carmel in front of me while I was standing at the corner! 
My godmother worked for him as a location manager on a few films before she became ill (“Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” and “Absolute Power” are the two I remember) and always spoke very, VERY highly of him. The man is very well admired by those who work for him, apparently.
You had a Near-Clint Experience !!! 
Your point is well taken. On a lot of dramatic films I shot, the first few takes were rarely acceptable. Some actors “warm up” into their character and into a scene. Some directors indulge this. Stanley Kubrick made a career of this ! It is fair to say that there are those magical moments where every emotional marker is hit, the shot works, and they say Cut and there’s utter silence. Because we all realize we truly got it.
Apparently Mr. Eastwood needs his actors to be thoroughly in the moment when they walk through the door. An efficient way to work, but you are right. Some performers cannot bring that to the table.
Saw it tonight, and thought that Clint was fantastic in it, but that the rest of the film was pretty disappointing. Most of the other actors were pretty bad, particularly Thao, but I would also say Sue and the priest. The script was middling, with some awful dialogue (Walt to Sue: “You know, you’re alright, kid…”) and contrived plot points (Thao’s mother making him work for Walt to pay off his debt – this was like something out of a sitcom). Thao’s character felt all out of focus to me: one moment he’s a shy, soft-spoken kid who likes to garden, the next he’s cursing at Walt and acting like a punk (as in the scene where they’re bringing the freezer up stairs)? I just didn’t buy the transition.
Oh, there was some good stuff. Aspects of the slice-of-life stuff were good, and made it entertaining enough for two hours. Walt’s racism and colorful use of epithets was entertaining in an Archie-Bunker, holy-cow-did-he-just-say-that way. And Walt’s slow opening up was entertaining enough. Still, I don’t think I could really recommend it to people.
And that song at the end… :o
We saw the film and thought it was fairly decent.
However, if you saw the trailer (like we did about 30 times in the past few months) you pretty much saw the entire film except the ending.
My vote is to most certainly wait for DVD, or for the film to appear on your premium cable channel. Not a bad film, but there are a lot of better films to spend your money on to see in a theater than this one.
Just saw it last night. It was very good, but it’s no Million Dollar Baby. I thought Clint was excellent, and the supporting cast was very good. I’m hoping to see The Wrestler this week. We’ll see which one gets my vote.
While I agree with the criticisms of this film, I have to say it still got a rousing crowd reaction from the audience I saw it it with. They laughed and cheered every time Clint growled or snarled. It’s true that the amateurs couldn’t really hold the screen with him, but the audience till loved Clint.
The original story was set here in the Twin Cities, but Michigan offered them better deals to film there.
Michigan’s Film incentive is 40% cash across the board.
Better deal? My god.
When Clint was in the trailer trying to get a job for Toad, the map on the wall was for Detroit.
Cool! I hate when movies depict “Detroit” and have palm trees on the corners & mountains in the background. Hey - visit Detroit in January! No palm trees here! Those “mountains” are actually piles of snow!
There were also several references to the Lions. In fact, Walt’s son calls his dad and asks if he still keeps in touch with that one guy from the plant who always had season tickets. I leaned over to my wife at that point and said “What, this guy needs help getting *Lions *tickets? No wonder Walt thinks he’s a putz.” (It would’ve been more realistic to have his son calling to ask about Red Wings tickets.)
All in all I thought it was a good movie. And to echo the others here, Clint is one bad ass 79-year-old.
It was originally written to be set in Minnesota. Some of the dialogue would make more sense in that context.
Understandable, but that’s a detail that could be fixed easily enough just by spending any amount of time in Detroit (as Eastwood did), as opposed to just crossing off “Vikings” and inserting “Lions” into the script.
The only line that jumped out at me as being a vestigial Minnesota reference was when the next-door neighbor girl says it was the Lutherans that brought the Hmong over from southeast Asia. “Everyone blames the Lutherans.”
I share the minority view that this was a so-so movie with one great performance by Clint. Even using non-actors, they still could have given them credible lines of dialogue. Instead, too much of the dialogue sounded stilted and improvised (and painful to listen to). Also, the actor who played the priest should have to turn in his SAG card. It was that awful.
We met Clint breifly at his inn in Carmel.
But this film was fantastic.
Just saw this movie this weekend and had a few comments:
First, I agree completely with the critiques of some of the acting - the priest and Thao were both pretty bad, as were the sons, IMO. Disappointing, because solid casting has been a hallmark of Eastwood’s other directing outings.
Second, did anyone else seem some striking similarities with this character and William Munny from Unforgiven? Unexplained dark past with atrocities and guilt. Separation from family. Speech about the horrors of killing (“You don’t want to know” vs. “It’s a hell of a thing killing a man” - some of the dialog was almost a paraphrase). Then both movies end with a climactic confrontation in which Clint is heavily outnumbered. In Unforgiven he kills most of them and rides off into the night, but gets no redemption (hence, Unforgiven) but in Gran Torino he refuses the fight and gets shot down, but perhaps redeemed.
Finally, there was one shot in particular that I liked. After Walt locked Thao in the basement there was a conversation through the grate that mimicked the shot used during Walt’s confessional. But this time he actual does confess to the murder of the surrendering man in Korea, compared to his evasion with the priest.
Overall, solid and enjoyable, but certainly not the best movie I’ve seen this year, nor Clint’s best outing (as an actor or a director).
I enjoyed the hell out of it – mostly as a character piece for Clint.
The only performance I had a little issue with was #1 son, which could have been toned down a bit.
Criticisms of Christopher Carley’s performance as the priest for being unconvincing miss the point a bit, in my opinion.
I get that he was supposed to be a novice priest that didn’t know anything, but to me, he seemed more like someone who was told to improvise his lines and couldn’t think of anything to say. I would be interested to find out if there was extensive improvisation (especially in the scenes with the Hmong gang: “Get in the car, get in the car. Um, get in the car”) or if it was just my imagination.