Tim Powitz - Gran Torino

Over spring break I watched Gran Torino starring an aged Clint Eastwood. Religion is a stressed and intentionally forced subject within the film. Eastwood's character's wife has just passed, and being the hard scratch that he is, he hardly shos any emotion except bitterness towards everyone, as usual. It tis this even that causes him to have regular encounters with the catholic priest as they discuss his life. He lives in a neighborhood that is full of immigrants, mostly Korean (I think). He is so stubborn that he would rather stay in his house in his neighborhood instead of giving in and moving to a retirement home. He is forced in to a relationship with the next door neighbor's kid, who is riding the fine line between respectful family member and gang violence. Normally, Eastwood's character would be the last person I would think of in comparison to Jesus, bu he mentors this young man and eventually saves his life in an emotional way and in the physical way. At the end of the film, Eastwood walks into his own death as he is gunned down while saying a Hail Mary. He, of course, dies with his arms spread wide in the form of a cross.