Gran Torino may well be Clint Eastwood’s masterpiece. Daniel Stephens takes a look at Eastwood’s brilliant 2008 film about a battle-weary old man who befriends the immigrant neighbours he once had such disdain for.

2008 was the year cinema aisles up and down the country were run riot by dancing middle aged women. Yes, it was the year smash hit Abba musical “Mamma Mia” made its cinematic debut. It was also the year Steven Spielberg returned to one of his most famous characters – Indiana Jones. Both films provided mixed results. “Mamma Mia” was novelty at best and pandered to a very select audience, while “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” was convoluted trash made to cash-in on the franchise before …

Clint Eastwood may be to many casual filmgoers the gun-toting authoritarian Harry Callahan from the “Dirty Harry” movies, or perhaps the man with no name from Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns, or more recently Frankie Dunn in “Million Dollar Baby. He’s an iconic Hollywood figure who has embodied some of the world’s most recognisable characters in many of the most prominent films of the last fifty years. But he’s also as accomplished behind the camera as he is in front of it, directing such classics as “Play Misty For Me”, “The …