The buzz on the new Clint Eastwood flick has been on automotive forums for months thanks to its title and co-star: Gran Torino. Yes, as is Ford. In case you had not seen the trailer yet, go here to view it. Looks to us like they didn’t want to call it Dirty Harry, Retired. Not that we would have minded. Eastwood plays a retired auto worker instead, so, these days, legions of viewersshould be able to relate. Looks like too much of a message movie, but we’ll be in the theater.

CLINT EASTWOOD stars as Walt Kowalski in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Village Roadshow Pictures’ drama “Gran Torino,” distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. Photo by Anthony Michael Rivetti

Here’s the official release:

Gran Torino
In Theatres December

Multiple Academy Award winner Clint Eastwood stars in the drama “Gran Torino,” marking his first film role since his Oscar-winning film “Million Dollar Baby.” Eastwood stars as an iron-willed and inflexible Korean War veteran, living in a changing world, who is forced by his immigrant neighbors to confront his own long-held prejudices.

Retired auto worker Walt Kowalski fills his days with home repair, beer, and monthly trips to the barber. Though his late wife’s final wish was for him to take confession, for Walt–an embittered veteran of the Korean War who keeps his M-1 rifle cleaned and ready–there’s nothing to confess. And no one he trusts enough to confess to other than his dog, Daisy.
The people he once called his neighbors have all moved or passed away, replaced by the Hmong immigrants he despises.

Resentful of virtually everything he sees–the drooping eaves, overgrown lawns and the foreign faces surrounding him; the aimless gangs of Hmong, Latino and African American teenagers who all think the neighborhood belongs to them; the callow strangers his children have grown up to be–Walt is just waiting out the rest of his life.
Until the night someone tries to steal his Gran Torino.

Still gleaming as it did the day Walt himself helped roll it off the assembly line decades ago, the Gran Torino brings his shy teenaged neighbor Thao (Bee Vang) into his life when Hmong gang-bangers pressure the boy into trying to steal it.
But Walt stands in the way of both the heist and the gang, making him the reluctant hero of the neighborhood–especially to Thao’s mother and older sister, Sue (Ahney Her), who insist that Thao work for Walt as a way to make amends. Though he initially wants nothing to do with these people, Walt eventually gives in and puts the boy to work fixing up the neighborhood, setting into motion an unlikely friendship that will change both their lives.

Through Thao and his family’s unrelenting kindness, Walt eventually comes to understand certain truths about the people next door. And about himself. These people–provincial refugees from a cruel past–have more in common with Walt than he has with his own family, and reveal to him parts of his soul that have been walled off since the war…like the Gran Torino preserved in the shadows of his garage.

Warner Bros. Pictures, in association with Village Roadshow Pictures, a Double Nickel Entertainment, a Malpaso Production, “Gran Torino.” The film is directed by Clint Eastwood from a screenplay by Nick Schenk, story by Dave Johannson & Schenk. Eastwood, Robert Lorenz and Bill Gerber are the producers, with Jenette Kahn, Adam Richman, Tim Moore and Bruce Berman serving as executive producers.

“Gran Torino” will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company, and in select territories by Village Roadshow Pictures.

The film has been rated R by the MPAA for “language throughout and some violence.”