The Grand Torino: Walt Kowalski

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“…Good god it’s pathetic… Hacked seven-teen-year old kids to death…I did things… Horrible things that I have to live with” These are all excerpts from the main character of the movie Grand Torino, Walt Kowalski. The movie “Grand Torino” is a motivating tale of the emotional struggles of the Anti-hero role of “Walt”: a widowed Vietnam veteran who fights a daily struggle with the memories of his sins as a soldier and his ever-growing biased against, what seems to be, all of humanity. This boorish character makes a perfect antagonist to the Hmong family that resides next door. Despite his entail reluctance to grow attached to the neighboring family a stimulating chain of events, starting with the attempted theft of the Grand Torino, transformed Walt from an embittered, materialist old man into a courageous hero with honors incomparable to those he earned in his army days. There are plenty of examples that can be pulled from the story line and used to mark each stages of the metamorphosis but there are three main quotes that caught my attention exclusively “Get off my lawn”; “I’ve got more in common with these goddmaned gooks than my own spoiled-rotten family”; and “You have no Honor.” Each of these quotes works as individual turning point of our antagonizing protagonists. The first quote is introduced in the story during the earliest confrontation with Tao’s family over the attempted theft of Walt’s Grand Torino. Following Tao’s first gang initiation, the car theft, a second arrangement was made which was a classic “jump in” that resulted in a brutal struggle between Tao and his family on Walt’s front yard. The beginning climax rapidly grows in its violence as Tao get’s thrown to the floor. The rest of the gang proceeded ... ... middle of paper ... ...came up with something much more powerful: Self sacrifice, and this time with wittiness. With pride Walt gave his own life to protect the people he loved the most and with honor he will forever be remembered as a genuine hero to his friends and family. Never did he stop speaking the truth with a tongue as sharp as blades, hissing insults from his grave. Even at his formal he was remembered as a brute but now it was recognized as an old fashioned old man trying his best to pass down his words of wisdom in the best way he knew how. In retrospect that was what he was trying to do all along, “Get off my lawn” “I’ve got more in common with theses god damned gooks…” And “You have no honor” are all lesions he was trying to teach to people that simply did not want to listen, including himself, but as in time each and every word he spoke was realized.

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