GRAN TORINO: Clint plunders his own past

It would be fascinating to learn what a space alien would make of GRAN TORINO.
An intelligent life form from another planet is the only being that could come to this film with no preconceptions about Clint Eastwood. My bet is they'd describe his performance as “interesting but uneven.”
For us earthbound humans it’s impossible to view GRAN TORINO without making connections to Eastwood’s cinematic history and, in particular his spaghetti westerns and ‘Dirty Harry’ films.

Now imagine the Eastwood character from these movies forty years later, retired and living in a rundown suburb of Detroit. Instead of being called The Man with No Name or Harry Callahan, he's Walt Kowalski. His working life has been spent not as a cop or vigilante but on the production line at a Ford factory. Before that he served in the US Army in Korea where he saw and did things that have haunted him ever since.
As the film opens Walt is burying his wife, and this is where the unevenness first creeps in because it’s impossible to imagine him living with anyone for forty years. He’s a buttoned-down, cranky, misanthropic loner, “a relic from the 1950s” as one of his sons describes him, with a face frozen into a permanent expression of disgust.
Contempt dripping with sarcasm is the only emotion he’s able to express. It’s quickly obvious that this is not just a reaction to the loss of his wife; this is a lifelong condition.
He’s had a problem with Asians ever since the Korean War which makes him a less than ideal neighbour for the Hmong family who move in next door. His prejudice boils over when he catches their teenage son, Thao (Bee Vang) trying to steal his prized 1972 Gran Torino as a gang initiation rite, but it also forces him – very reluctantly – to confront his racism as the family insist on befriending him while making amends for Thao’s transgression.
As Walt learns more about the family and the Hmong way of life he also finds himself drawn into a conflict which can only end in violence.
It gives little away to reveal that, having become involved in the conflict, Walt believes he has no choice but to take the law into his own hands and this is where the weight of Eastwood’s cinematic past crushes our ability to see Kowalski as a three dimensional character in his own right.
I half expected him to utter the iconic question “do you feel lucky punk?” with a cheroot clenched between his teeth and a poncho over his shoulders. Not only does Walt Kowalski channel Blondie, Mongo, and Harry Callahan but also Clint Eastwood doing an impression of himself.
There’s a surprising amount of laughter in GRAN TORINO and much of it derives from Eastwood appearing to send up his own screen image. The humour, although genuinely funny, sits a little uneasily alongside the serious drama.
The result is unsettling because it makes Kowalski less of a credible character and more an amalgam of everyone Eastwood has previously played on screen.
But before I can come to a definitive decision on my reaction to GRAN TORINO I think I need to watch it again to get past the constant distraction of Eastwood’s apparent plundering of his back catalogue of characters.