While the rest of America looks to conflicts raging overseas, the veteran actor and director picks his thematic battles much closer to home.
In particular, he examines the clashes of ideals in predominantly white, blue-collar neighbourhoods, where
the ethnic and cultural make-up has been irrevocably altered by the influx of immigrants.
This volatile mix of old and new, east and west, explodes with devastating consequen-ces in Gran Torino, a powerful tale of modern day vigilantism based on a script by Nick Schenk.
At the emotional heart of the story is Walt Kowalski (Eastwood), a man haunted by his experiences in the Korean War and consumed by grief over the death of his beloved wife.
He is a man of few words, none of them kind, who harbours resentment towards everyone around him, including his two sons, Mitch (Brian Haley) and Steve (Brian Howe).
The old coot has no interest in the sermons of local priest Father Janovich (Christopher Carley) and even less time for the Asian next-door neighbours he labels 'swamp rats'.
When Hmong gang-banger Spider (Doua Moua) and his four-strong posse scrap with neighbour's son Thao (Bee Vang) on his lawn, Walt intervenes with his rifle.
Spider and co flee the scene and Thao's older sister Sue (Ahney Her) shows her gratitude by strengthening ties between the two households.
Against the odds, Walt finds himself warming to his neighbours and he takes Thao under his wing, encouraging the lad to become the man of his house.
However, Spider and his gang have Walt and his protege in their sights and the only language they understand begins with the pull of a trigger.
Gran Torino is another beautifully crafted, deeply compassionate and timely piece of filmmaking from Eastwood, which provokes difficult moral questions about personal responsibility and sacrifice in a world riven by gang violence and peer pressure.
The veteran star is mesmerising as a curmudgeon who chews on political correctness and spits out the bones, dismissing Sue's heartfelt thanks for saving her brother by growling, "All I did was get a bunch of jabbering gooks off my lawn."
The strength of the performance lies in Eastwood's ability to chip away at Walt's steely facade and reveal the rage and despair within.
"I lived with death for three years in Korea," Walt tells Father Janovich sadly. "I did things that won't leave me till the day I die - horrible things, things I have to live with."
"Sounds like you know more about death than you do living," responds the holy man.
Newcomers Vang and Her pale next to such a formidable, eye-catching performance, particularly in the heart-wrenching final act when Walt proves that love has no limits.
Bankers sitting ducks in The International
DAMON SMITH
The International (15) ***Could the timing be more perfect for a conspiracy thriller that paints the banking community as moustache-twirling villains?
With the blame for the credit crunch leveled squarely at financial institutions, which allowed people to borrow well above their means, The International chooses a sitting duck as its primary target.
Screenwriter Eric Warren Singer was inspired by the downfall of the Bank of Credit and Commercial International, which collapsed in 1991, just as UK and US legislators discovered details of arms dealings and money laundering.
From the seed of corporate shame blooms a fast-paced, action-packed work of fiction, pitting two ordinary people against a huge global machine with tentacles that reach into the upper echelons of power.
Money speaks louder than principles - it controls global politics, drives people to commit desperate acts and finances terrorism and wars which leave entire nations clamouring for survival.
Interpol Agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) uncovers evidence of serious infringements within one of the world's most powerful banks and resolves to bring the institution's boardroom to justice. However, Jonas Skarssen (Ulrich Thomsen), Wilhelm Wexler (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and their partners are wise to the investigation and hire a hit man called The Consultant (Brian F O'Byrne) to eliminate this pesky thorn in their side.
Joining forces with Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts), Louis follows the money around the world, travelling from Berlin and Milan to New York and Istanbul in the hope of gathering enough proof to expose the dodgy dealings.
However, the men in power will stop at nothing to protect their investments - even murder.
The International is distinguished by a couple of brilliantly orchestrated action sequences, directed with brio by Tom Tykwer.
An assassination attempt on a prominent politician is a masterclass in sustained tension and slick editing, with terrific use of overhead shots of a rally where the shooting is due to take place.
However, the piece de resistance is a running gun battle in the iconic Solomon R Guggenheim Museum in New York, where Louis and an unlikely ally has to somehow evade heavily armed goons to make their escape.
The entire building is riddled with bullets and shattered glass. Tykwer quite literally brings the house down.
THE CLASS(ENTRE LES MURS) (15)
Based on the book by Francois Begaudeau, who also pens the screenplay and takes the lead role, The Class (Entre Les Murs) deservedly won the Palme d'Or, the highest honour at last year's Cannes Film Festival.
The film took shape during a year of workshops and improvisation with real-life students and staff from a junior high school in Paris's 20th arrondissement, who inhabit their roles without restraint.
Idealistic teacher Francois Marin (Begaudeau) looks forward to a new academic year, in which he hopes to inspire and mould the minds of the 25 culturally and racially diverse teenagers who make up his French language class.
However, run-ins with one belligerent student, Souleymane (Franck Keita), and an unfortunate choice of words during an argument with partners in classroom crime Khoumba (Rachel Regulier) and Sandra (Esmeralda Ouertani) send shockwaves around the playground, culminating in an emergency meeting to decide the characters' fates.
NEW IN TOWN (12A)A city girl with a love of shoes and fine dining discovers love where she least expects it in Jonas Elmer's romantic comedy.
Ambitious, up and coming executive Lucy Hill (Renee Zellweger) always has her eye on the next rung up the career ladder.
Sensing that a big promotion is close at hand, Lucy readily agrees to leave behind her beloved, sun-kissed Miami for a temporary assignment in snowbound Minnesota, where her considerable talents are required to spearhead the restructuring of an ailing manufacturing plant.
In this wintry wilderness, stripped bare of her luxuries, Lucy meets a simple yet charming man (Harry Connick Jr) who teaches her that the true value of life isn't the price tag on the clothes you wear.
FRANKLYN (15)Four intertwined storylines paint a very different portrait of modern London in writer-director Gerald McMorrow's feature film debut, which melds elements of fantasy and reality.
Milo (Sam Riley) is dumped just days before his wedding and commiserates with his best man (Richard Coyle). The groom-to-be's bemusement and distress is eased greatly by a chance encounter with a childhood sweetheart.
Elsewhere in the capital, tortured artist Emilia (Eva Green) goes through the painful process of therapy with her mother (Susannah York), and lonely Peter (Bernard Hill) scours every nook and cranny for his mentally damaged son, who has gone missing.
In an alternate and futuristic reality, a masked crusader called Preest (Ryan Phillippe) prepares to kill the man he holds accountable for his years of pain.
Sadly, The Unborn does see the light of day
The Unborn (15) **Written and directed by David S Goyer, The Unborn is a preposterous supernatural yarn that keeps a straight face while the rest of us are sniggering.
Gleefully appropriating elements from The Exorcist including a possessed soul whose head swivels through 180 degrees then scuttles up the stairs on all fours, Goyer's film is generic horror hokum that awkwardly uses the Holocaust as a backdrop to an outlandish tale of secret experiments and evil spirits.
Leading lady Odette Yustman spends longer than is strictly necessary in just her underwear, wailing like a banshee as her accursed heroine is stalked by swarms of Jerusalem crickets and a demon child.
Copious dream sequences and hallucinations - like a mirror that rattles in the middle of the night and a creepy, masked bulldog - drag out the character's ordeal until the demon handily reveals itself to the supporting cast, giving credence to her ranting and raving.
The plot unfolds in fits and spurts, only making the whole enterprise more laughable as characters spill key information about dead twins and a mythological, shape-shifting force called a dybbuk without winking an eye, as if they were discussing the weather forecast.
The Unborn nudges poor Casey Beldon (Yustman) to the brink of insanity - "Either I'm crazy or something is coming after me and I need to protect myself!" - and us to the brink of boredom as the dybbuk attacks everyone she holds dear.
Gary Oldman must have fallen short on the rent - there's no other reason why he would accept this claptrap.
