Would the real Mr Eastwood please stand up?

How much could I reasonably expect from Clint Eastwood?

His directorial debut, Play Misty For Me, featured compelling performances and hideous hair, and ground down to a predictable snoozefest before half of the hundred minutes were up.

His iconic Dirty Harry performances have dated appallingly - in no small part because their rampant chauvinism is now not even ironic.

Of course his wry humour, humanist touch and political conscience give his work as a director relevance beyond the quality of each film. Nonetheless his back catalogue is liberally littered with overly earnest misfires (Blood Work, the second half of Million Dollar Baby), genre clangers (The Rookie, Firefox) and out-and-out head scratchers (Space Cowboys).

Still, he has earned his reputation as a director always worth watching and deserves the benefit of the doubt with projects that seem fraught.

Which is why I was disappointed with Gran Torino. As a film, its...fine. The wonderful acting evens out the implausibility of the story, the excellent cinematography disguises the issues in pacing, the satisfying ending halfway substitutes for real empathy while the thematic intent covers most of the distance left. The problem is that every positive of craft is undermined by a negative of storytelling - in the end everything evens out so that it becomes eminently forgettable. I'd just come to expect more from Clint. More of a visceral experience. More of an emotional kick in the guts.

Maybe because this is his last film as an actor, he was too focused on going out with the same snarl as he started with. He's earned that right I suppose. It just doesn't make for a very complex film experience.