Clint Eastwood takes his young Hmong neighbor (Bee Vang) under his wing after the boy is coerced by a local gang into trying to steal Eastwood’s Gran Torino.

Warner Bros. / Anthony Michael Rivetti

Charles Bronson did it.

Jodie Foster did it.

Even Olivia de Havilland did it.

And now, in Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood takes a crack at the revenge movie. And yet despite its familiarity, Gran Torino has a surprise twist — in fact the only surprise twist there is in Gran Torino — which takes it to a little higher plane than the vengeance- bloody-vengeance motivations of Bronson’s Death Wish, Foster’s The Brave One and de Havilland’s Lady in a Cage.

Gran Torino is more than simply Death Wish coupled with Eastwood’s classic Dirty Harry, although the film’s title might just as easily have been “Dirty Harry in Retirement.” Certainly, in Gran Torino, Eastwood recalls that moment in 1983’s Sudden Impact when his Harry Callahan aimed his magnum at a downed criminal and growled the famous movie line, “Go ahead, make my day.” Eastwood doesn’t actually say the line this time, but the intent and the memory are there when he pulls a gun on a gang of toughs who are harassing a young woman who has recently moved next door.

At 78, Eastwood may look drawn, even a bit turtle-like, but there’s no doubt he still has the juice to take on a bunch of street-corner thugs a quarter his age.

Eastwood plays widower Walt Kowalski, who has lost his faith in God and his fellow man. He cannot abide what his America, the America he fought for in Korea more than a half century earlier, has become. “He’s living in the ’50s,” says one of his sons, neither of whom he has ever been close to.

He is dismayed by his teenage granddaughter who dresses like a trollop and shows little respect, even at her grandmother’s funeral. Walt is unhappy man except when it comes to his shiny 1972 mint-condition Gran Torino. Walt keeps the lovingly polished car like a gleaming trophy in his garage in a neighborhood he no longer recognizes. Most of Walt’s neighbors have moved out or died, replaced by people from foreign lands and ruled over by cocky Latino, African-American and Hmong gangs.

Gran Torino is about a man who hasn’t adapted to the changing times, but eventually does find his redemption in an unexpected way.

Nick Schenk’s script is painted in bold and too-often obvious strokes. Just about every encounter becomes both larger than life and somewhat unbelievable. Through most of the film Eastwood’s Walt reacts to the changing world around him with a series of abrasive growls and grunts and grrs. Think of the guttural sounds made by Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s Monster and you’ll get the drift. He’s an encyclopedia of racial slurs and ethnic putdowns.

He slams the door on the young parish priest who is desperately, persistently trying to make a connection to Walt to fulfill a promise made to Walt’s beloved wife on her deathbed. Filled with bile, Walt cuts short anyone trying to approach him, including his new Hmong neighbors

But when Thao (Bee Vang), the young, bookish teenage son in the next-door Hmong household, is coerced by his cousin into trying to steal Walt’s Gran Torino to prove his worthiness for the gang, things take a new swing for Walt who thwarts the gang’s plans. In an instant he has become a hero to his Hmong neighbors who shower him with food and flowers, invite him to a barbecue. Thao’s savvy, Americanized sister Sue (Ahney Her) tries to help Walt bridge the culture gap. Walt reciprocates by taking Thao, previously silent and remote, under his wing, mentoring the boy and encouraging him to find a profession. He affectionately calls the boy “Toad.”

It’s a meeting of the minds, with Walt opening up to new ideas. But of course the Hmong gang is never far away, returning again and again like a persistent gnat to buzz around Thao and the perimeter of the plot. Eastwood turns all this into a black-white situation, with none of the subtlety he showed in his Academy Award-winning Million Dollar Baby five years ago. This hardheaded approach, in which the bad guys are lower than dirt, keeps the momentum going to prime the audience for the inevitable blowout confrontation — go ahead, make my day.

Fortunately, there’s a little more here to chew on. For one thing, we get a peek into Walt’s vulnerability. And the breakdown of his steely exterior is a charming plus that’s handled deftly by Eastwood. Good, too, are his moments with Christopher Carley’s Father Janovich, a compassionate priest who does not surrender in his attempts to find the human side of Walt.

There aren’t many light moments in Gran Torino, but a standout is the funny sequence in which Walt takes Thao/Toad to the barber shop to “man him up a little’ by teaching him how to talk gruff and swaggeringly with the help of Walt’s prickly, longtime barber (John Carroll Lynch).

Gran Torino may ape other familiar films, yet in the end it manages to develop its own voice. And in Eastwood’s amusingly forthright performance it has something that’s unique and, in all its politically incorrect glory, something no other actor could get away with.

***Gran Torino

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Ahney Her, Brian Haley, Geraldine Hughes, Dreama Walker, John Carroll Lynch.

Rated: R, contains violence, profanity.

mjanuson@projo.com