The trailer for Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino (Warner Bros., 12.17) is up and running, and it feels delicious. Make that scrumptious. It shows the basics, who the characters are, the tone of it, the tough-old-bird-against-the-gang-bangers scheme. And it conveys something really special, or does by my sights.

Remember that initial rumor that Gran Torino might be some kind of Dirty Harry movie (which of course was soon after debunked)? Well, take a look at this thing — it is a kind of Dirty Harry movie, at least in terms of the pugnacious, suffer-no-fools, take-no-guff nature of Eastwood’s Walt character. I realize that it’s finally about getting past (or growing through) all of that, but that final hand gesture — the very last image in the trailer — has a certain legendary assurance, and almost a kind of beauty. Because of our decades-long investment in the Clint legend, because of his iconic nature, because of the Eastwood metaphor of never retiring or slowing down and getting better as you get older.
You can never trust trailers, but Gran Torino looks like a humdinger.