Title is tangentially based on the car (actually owned by Clint Eastwood), perhaps a symbol of the "good ole days," when Detroiter Walt Kowalski - a grizzled Korean War vet - lived a contented life in the privacy of his little patch of heaven in what appears to be Hamtramck, the famed Polish section of Detroit. Now suffused with Hmong immigrants, both good and bad, he suffers misanthropically, holding his ground rather than escaping to another place. The family next door gradually seduces him into recognizing the good in their way of life. As he gets involved with them he also gets involved with gang war oppression, and in true "Dirty Harry" style brings peace and order to the neighborhood.

Here is a strong, moralist tale that has become the trademark of Eastwood's maturity in film making, as he recognizes intolerance and does something about it. But after such inspiring films as "Mystic River" and "Million Dollar Baby, the 78-year-old actor/director seems to have slipped and settled for the obvious, the trite, and an emphasis on emotions.

To begin with, the script (Nick Schenk) has an amateurish ring to it - consisting of a series of what might pass on the stage as "French" scenes - tidy, incomplete moments that briefly introduce exposition and plants to further a plot, that gradually grow both familiar and predictable.

Focus is on the two homes in contrast, side by side, with emphasis on Kowalski's gradual change from a grunting, sneering, foul-mouthed and taciturn old guy to hero and protector of the underdogs next door.

Part of the problem - aside from the script's desperate attempt at humor through a tirade of racial slurs on Kowalsi's part, supposedly becoming friendly bantering - funny when it works, embarrassingly uncomfortable when it doesn't.

A scene in a barbershop is a prime example in both bad writing and direction. Kowalksi, in an attempt to "educate" the next door kid in learning how to communicate man-to-man is tested in the shop, where the two older men exchange friendly profanities, which the boy amazingly digests and regurgitates to their satisfaction. Should be funny, but it comes up as phony.

Most of the problems center on Eastwood himself. Once capable of both directing and acting, he now lacks something in pulling details together, in making them creatively believable. His Kowalksi is first seen with a curled lip accompanied by a gorilla grunt, and that level of characterization is repeated over and over, as if Eastwood has nothing more in his bag of tricks to enlarge or grow upon.

Like the material in the script, everything is morally correct, the concept is admirable, but it settles for less, employing predictable situations that lead to a predictable conclusion - and relying more on surface emotions than real depth - leaving Eastwood's past filmography, from tough cowboy loner to pragmatic nemeses of crime to champion of the underdogs - to this. Intriguing, but a lesser body of work. Expectations were high, results were disappointing.