Gran Torino--the sacred profanity of the working class

Gran Torino was a four hankie, male tear-jerker of a movie. Can't remember anything quite like it since Big Fish. I was back in the old neighborhood again, where Polacks, Wops, Krauts, and other Guinee guys called each other such, and this vocabulary was a sign of affection. The word list has grown since my youth with such choice expressions as wuss and dip-shit, but it's all in the tone, I guess--certainly indiscernible to the politically correct ear.   

Clint Eastwood, though not my visual image of a "Walter Kowalski," mastered the role of the man who, failing to raise his children to his own satisfaction, is forced by circumstance to try again, this time helping the parish priest grow up and making the Hmong neighbor boy not only the heir of his Ford but of his fortitude and forthrightness.

Yes, it is the US Lone Ranger again saving the neighborhood--do we have any other adventure theme? True Grit redux? Eastwood's artistry brings out enough of the familiar to invite us visit ourselves and then takes us to the old trunk in the basement to dig out a bit more about where we came from. As in The Unforgiven, we are asked to see more than our myths, urban and frontier, would like us to remember. 

The trailer is rated G "No nudity, no sex, no drugs, minimal violence and limited use of language that goes beyond polite conversation," and, of course, fails to convey what the movie is actually about.