The film was very good, not great. Great was Unforgiven or Mystic River. The plot was all too predictable. The ending was advertised far in advance. But it was a very entertaining movie because of Clint Eastwood. At least I can now imagine what Harry Callahan did after he retired from the SFPD.
I’m surprised at all of the criticism for the actor who played Thau. It was refreshing to see a 15 year old kid being played as being gawky, uncomfortable in his skin, and stilted in his speech patterns. Particularly first generation immigrant kids tend to exhibit these mannerisms.
The priest’s acting, on the other hand, was just atrocious.
Entertaining and watchable but very, very choc-full of Hollywood cliches. So much so that it never goes beyond a small crowd pandering pic.
You could see the ending coming so far in advance that I didn’t really think they would go down that predicatable path. But they did. And it didn’t even follow what the film had already set up as canon. Girl gets beat up but nobody calls the cops because “Hmong are always silent.” So that tells me right there that even if a young girls gets beaten and raped they will keep silent for fear of retalitation.
So then Walt’s whole plan hinges on the Hmong “not” keeping silent.
Cop: “They’re going away for a long time, this time we got witnesses.” 
Haven’t seen it, but on the same off shoot - the young female secondary role was played by a young girl still in high school at my sons old high school. She came back from summer vacation, folks said “so, what’d you do during the break” and her answer was “shot a movie w/Clint Eastwood”. 
By local reports, she’s still relatively well grounded about the deal, gave an interview on the radio - but had to get a special pass out of class to do it.
I may be mistaken as it has been a few weeks, but I didn’t think that all of the neighbor witnesses were Hmong. I seem to recall a lot of different people peeking out of windows and doors to see what the ruckus was.
Not earth shaking, but this now appears as a goof. Actually a lot of goofs in that sceen and regarding those forms.
Ditto on the kudos. I can’t believe that Eastwood did not get a nomination for his role.
And ditto on that song. Geez, that sucked.
Just saw the film on Friday night.
I gotta say I enjoyed it, and would happily recommend people to see it.
I can admit there were a few problems with the movie, and sure, it wasn’t a masterpiece by any stretch, but they didn’t stop it from being enjoyable.
I’m not seeing the bad acting from the actor who was playing Tao. I don’t know what everyone else was like as a teenager, but at that age I was extremely socially awkward and shy, and think he did a reasonable job at that. He only became more outspoken once he got comfortable with Clint’s character, and when taken under his tutelage.
[spoiler] I don’t think the ending was predictable as such. It was telegraphed IMO that he was going to ‘sacrifice’ himself, but exactly what form that would take was left to debate.
I bet the average joe, knowing it was a Clint movie, would have been expecting him to go out with guns blazing. And I agree that the crucifix position at the end was super cheesy [/spoiler]
And the song over the credits, OMG.
I read a book detailing the case of a young Hmong girl and her health problems (The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, a very interesting read), and one of the primary problems the doctors had in trying to treat her was that the Hmong were extremely reluctant to communicate with outsiders, particularly those in authority positions (doctors, police, etc). That line may have been referring to this, rather than a fear of retaliation.
Also, they filmed a good bit of this near where I am right now, so there is a little bit of local pride in it doing as well as it has been. Og knows there isn’t much to be proud of in MI these days.
My claim to fame! The girl was played by an ex-girlfriend of my co-worker’s brother from here in the Lansing area! I feel so special now.
The cheesy song at the end? Well, musical credits go to Kyle Eastwood, Clint’s son.
Ah, the perils of nepotism…
I came away from the ending thinking, “Well, they’ve got a pretty good argument for self defense.” A crazy old man whose threatened them with a gun in the past shows up at their front door, calls them out, threatens them, and then makes a rapid movement into his coat. I’d have shot first and checked for a lighter later, but then I suppose that gangbangers aren’t going to get much sympathy from the jury for putting dozens of bullets into an old man.
Saw this over the weekend.
I LOVED the story idea, and the general plot. But the delivery of such was absolutely horrid. The acting was some of the worst that I’ve ever seen. The priest, Thau, the cousin, his crew and, yes, even Sue were just atrocious. Nice of Clint to give a non-existant subpopulation a chance at acting, but to suggest their performances were of high quality is just false. I think that even Clint’s abilities were taken down a notch because of it. Add in that song at the end and this film barely garners a 2 out of 5.
Hope this isn’t too much of a resurrection, but I wanted to respond to a few of the comments made thus far in the thread.
Just saw the film on DVD over the weekend. While it had its weak points (such as the priest), I thought it was very good overall.
In particular, I had no problem with Clint’s characterization of Walt Kowalski. Yes, Walt was a racist, but I did not find his warming up to his neighbors to be unrealistic. In my experience, most older people are racist because that’s the way they were raised. However, they also are part of society, and society has changed. It’s no longer acceptable in most cases to be racist, particularly overtly. (The only generally acceptable way is to do it ironically, like the way Walt acts with his barber.) Most older people have learned this, and this tends to tone down previously learned racist behavior and thoughts (with the exception of the pathological racists, to be fair). So I didn’t have a problem with Walt taking an eventual liking to his Hmong neighbors, particularly when they were directly contrasted with his own family as well as the white kids who ignored the neighbor lady.
Also agree that the ending was telegraphed. However, this was really the only realistic way that things could have gone down. I think that the key was that the gang had mowed down with automatic weapons an unarmed long-time white resident on their front lawn in full view of lots of witnesses. There was no way that this could be overlooked by law enforcement.
Finally, I thought that Sue’s characterization was very good, and while Thao’s was weaker, it fits with that of an awkward, fatherless young man trying to find his way.
Good film, overall, IMHO.
I’ll jump in too so robby doesn’t feel so bad for “resurrecting” the thread. 
I just watched the movie last week. I’m not a real Eastwood fan so I really didn’t expect to like it, but I did.
I’m in the minority, I guess, because I thought the actor who played the priest did an excellent job. I felt that he held his own in the scenes with Clint. I bought his character’s sincerity about fulfilling the promise he made to Walt’s wife to get him to go to confession. I bet she had told the priest exactly what to expect from her husband and how hard he would have to work to get Walt into that confessional. I loved the part where Walt finally said “Call me Walt”. I could see it coming a mile away but I still loved it!
I agree though that the song at the end was excrutiating. Especially hearing Clint’s voice sing the first couple of lines. Ugh.
I thought the acting was pretty horrible throughout the movie. And I include Clint. I thought Sue was by far the worst; I cringed at almost every line.
I was really disappointed after seeing so many good reviews.
I watched this last night, and I agree with this. I know dozens of older guys who have no problem using every racist epithet out there, but at the same time will be polite and friendly to actual people of that race. It’s a strange form of racism; it’s like an old bad habit that they can’t get rid of.
I’m not excusing them - it’s obviously racist - but Walt’s character didn’t strike me as odd at all.
I really liked the movie. I didn’t predict the ending - I figured he’d die, given the scene where he bought the suit - but I figured he’d go out in a blaze of gunfire. I didn’t catch the crucifix thing at all.
I liked that it was filmed in Michigan. It’s kinda cool to see neighborhoods in movies that look like they could be in my town.
I don’t remember anything about a crucifix. Someone care to remind me?
Could that be a reference to the shot where we see Clint fall dead with his arms outstretched in a “Jesus pose?”
Yup, that’s what I meant.