'Gran Torino' (R): Oscar voters were obviously not revved up over actor-director Clint Eastwood's dramatic masterpiece "Gran Torino" -- but that's hardly a reason to ignore this riveting tale of redemption that brings to the veteran star as close to "Dirty Harry" role as he's been since the iconic character's last film, "The Dead Pool," in 1988.

Eastwood stars as Walt Kowalski, a recently widowed Korean War veteran angry over the transformation of his neighborhood into a Hmong community. But after his Hmong neighbor, Thao (Bee Vang) is caught trying to steal Walt's treasured Gran Torino during a gang initiation, the grizzled veteran attempts to rehabilitate the teen and strikes up an unlikely friendship in the process.

However, when the gang, led by Thao's cousin, refuses to ease up on Thao and his family, Walt is forced to confront the ghosts of his time serving in the war as he contemplates action against the people who threaten to destroy his neighborhood.

In-your-face and politically incorrect at every turn, "Gran Torino" is a film that only Eastwood could pull off. On its face, "Gran Torino" appears to be racially insensitive, but the overtones of those insensitivities are a necessary evil in order for Eastwood to tell a riveting story of cultural indifferences in our changing society.

Walt is a character from a brutally straightforward generation, and while he isn't about to change the way he communicates with people, he shows a willingness to open up his heart and mind to the idea of mending fences with a culture he didn't quite understand before. No matter how hard the narrative is to take at times, it's an important -- if not necessary -- film to see.

While Eastwood is brilliant as Walt, the cast is full of surprises, from Vang to Ahney Her, as Thao's streetwise sister, Sue; to Christopher Carley as Father Janovich -- a young priest who refuses to give up on Walt's shaky spirituality in the aftermath of the grumbled veteran's death. Screenwriter Nick Schenk nails the characters' transformations in a wonderfully subtle manner while capturing the essence of Walt's generation and explaining the background of Hmong culture.

DVD Features: Production featurettes and more. (Warner Home Video)

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