At the beginning of the movie we are placed in the wife of Walt's funeral. At the dinner afterwards Walt is getting enough of all the guests and goes out for a walk with his dog, Daisy. There he sees new neighbors moving in, a whole bunch of Asians. Right after he has walked back inside one of them shows up at his door wanting to borrow something, but all he gets is crap in his face from the racist Walt. Its not only the Asian people Walt is not a fan of. When his son is driving home he is saying "kill to buy American" to himself, because the car they were driving were Asian produced.
After we have seen how Walt is reacting to the new neighbors we get an inside look of what they are doing in the newly in-moved house. We can see a woman and a man talking about how one of their daughters have to find a man to marry. Further we see how their doing a ritual for the newborn baby in the family. While this is happening Walt is cleaning his garden and the grandmother of the hmong house is coming out and asks him why he hasn't moved away from the neighborhood yet when everyone else who are American have. She really wants him to go away. After this the city priest shows up wanting to get Walt to confess, because that's what Walt's wife wanted him to, but Walt refuses to.
One day one of the hmong boys, with the name Thao, walks on the pavement when some of the boys comes up along his side in a car and starts to bully him because they mean he is such a feminine guy. At the road further away, Thaos cousin sees him being bullied and drives over to them to tell them to back off. They pull up a pistol and the hmongs answers with pulling up a machine gun which makes the bullies go away. Thaos cousin and his gang shows up at Thaos place later that day and tries to force Thao to come with them. His sister, Sue, hold Thao back so he wont go but he is being forced.
Walt is down at a bar when the priest shows up again. He is once again trying to make him to confess but this time they rather sit down and talk about life and death. Walt starts talking about when he was in the Korean war where he shot and killed lots of men, and that he feels scarred for life because of this. He will never forget it, and he thinks about it every day. I think that because of his imposed view of Asians from the war, this is why he reacts like he does towards the Asian neighbors.
The night after his bar trip he wakes up from metal sounds from his garage and picks up his machine gun to go down and see what was going on. He sees the neighborhood kid, Thao, standing there in the dark trying to steel his car. Thao manages to push Walt down to the ground and run away, but it is not over.
The day after the hmong gang drives up to the hmong house and asks if Thao will come with them when he refuses. A fight is started and everyone is laying on the ground. The hmong gang trying to take Thao with, and his family trying to hold him so he stays home. Walt sees someone stepping onto his lawn and just again pulls up his gun and points it at the hmong gang. He tells them to get off his lawn, and when they do he goes back inside. The gang is also scared and decides to leave the house.
When he the next day wakes up his outside stairs is full of flowers and food. The hmong people are doing this to thank him for coming out and save Thaos life the previous day. Once again the priest is coming to visit, but Walt will still not talk to him.
Walt is taking a drive when he sees his neighbor Sue and her date Trey walks along the street when the meet a gang of 3 Afro-Americans. Her date is saying words like "bro" and "homie" so they don't end up in a fight, but it doesn't seem to work. They Afro-Americans are starting to grab her and touch her inappropriate places. Her saver Walt arrives and pulls up his gun to get Sue home. On their way home Walts tell her not to hang out with those kind of people and she teaches him about the hmong people.
A afternoon, one of Walts sons and his daughter in law shows up for a visit. It is Walts birthday and they have of course brought a gift. They give him a new phone with extremely large buttons and a stick with a sort of a clip on the end so he doesn't need to bend down to pick things up. It doesn't look like they know Walt very well, especially not when they start to show him brochures for retirement centers. He is getting enough and throws them out so he can go out on the porch with his dog Daisy. After a short period of time Sue shows up asking if he wants to join them for dinner. He says he doesn't have anything better to do, so why not. Over at the hmong house he gets annoyed by this man who sits in a corner just watching him. Sue tells him that this man wants to "read him". Sues says that this is a privilege to be read and that it would be rude of him not to let him read. Walt accepts and the reader, who is almost like a Guru for the hmong people, finds out that Walt isn't in peace and that there is a illness inside him. He thinks everything is bullshit and walks away from the Guru with a grunt and a angry face.
When Sue finds Walt she asks him if he wants to come with her downstairs and he walks down with her. He sees a broken washer and starts to fix it while the youths sits in different couches and stares at him. When he is done Sue gives him some rice liquor and he walks over to Thao who is sitting alone in a corner. They start to talk and since Walt is so good to notice things he has noticed this pretty girl Youa looking at Thao all the time and thinks Thao is a big sissy who is afraid of asking her out. Well, he actually kind of is.
A day turns into another and Walt is outside doing his garden when the hmongs once again starts to deliver flowers and gifts to him. The difference this time is that Walt let them in because he enjoyed the food the day before so much. When all is delivered Sue, Vu and Thao comes up to him because Sue thinks that Thao should work for Walt as a pay-off for when he tried to steel the car. Walt can't convince them that he need any help so the very next day, Thao is at the door at the exact agreed time. Walt hasn't anything for him to do so he says that he can go to the other side of the street and count the birds. And so the days go until Thao gets the start fixing up the old neighbor house. Any day, any weather!
A few days later Thao is coming over for a visit and asks Walt if he can help him fix a sink. He accepts and helps him, but when they are going to the garage to get some equipment, Thao gets really impressed about everything he has and Walt gives him some of it as a gift. In return Thao helps Walt get a refrigerator out of the basement because Walt wants to throw it, but Thao wants to buy it, and Walt let him.
Throughout the day Sue is coming over to Walt and they talk about how grateful she is for letting him help Thao. Walt starts to think about Thaos future and walks over to him and asks him about what he thinks about his future. He says he wants to be in sales, but doesn't have the money to go to school. Walt has a friend in the construction business and says he can fix Thao a job, and Thao is thrilled over the opportunity to have a job. One day when he is walking home from work Thao runs into the hmong gang again. They starts to bully him and stubs a cigarette into his face. He does everything he can to hide the accident from Walt, but it doesn't og many days before he sees the scars in Thaos face. Walt is really furious and takes a visit to one of the hmong guys house and almost beats him to death. He says that it is for their own good to stay away from Thao and if there will be a next time, the outcome will be far more bad than this.
The summers good weather is showing and Walt is at the hmong house grilling. Thao says he finally managed to ask Youa out on a date. Walt is so happy for them and let them borrow the Gran Torino at the date, he doesn't want them to ride the bus at this great happening. Everything seems really good and everyone is happy. In the evening Walt is sitting all by himself being happy for once in his couch when the smile on his face abruptly disappears. There is someone shooting at the hmong house.
Walt runs over to check if everyone is ok. The biggest damage that is done is Thaos cut on the neck, otherwise everything seem to be fine. Except one thing, they cant find Sue. They are waiting up for her, and when she walks in the door hours later she is totally beaten up. Full of blood and bruises. Walt drops his glass when he sees the poor girl and you can understand what Walt is thinking. This is not going to end good.
The very next morning Thao runs over to Walt and says that he is ready to take out everyone in the hmong gang. Walt says that everything needs to be plan to the last detail, but Thao just want to get over with it. We can understand Walt is preparing something. He goes to the church to make the confession his wife always wanted him to and goes to the barber to cut his hair. When he comes home again, Thao is there with him. They walk downstairs and Walt gives the medal he got when he was the only one surviving a war, to Thao. Thao stands still and just looks at the medal - totally surprised. That was not his smartest move, because when he turns around Walt has already gone upstairs and locked the door down to the basement. Thao is being held in the basement. Walt wants to do this operation alone.
When the night arrives Walt is outside the hmong house and everyone of the gang is pointing their guns at him. They throw shit talk back and forth, and all the neighbors are on their porches looking at what's happening. You can see that Walt know what he is doing but when he asks the hmong gang of light to his cigarette everyone look like question marks. No one gives him a light, and he reaches for his own lighter in his pocket. This is where the intended misunderstanding is made. The hmong people think he is reaching for a gun and open fire is started. Everyone in the hmong gang shoots at him several times and the scene ends with Walt laying on the ground with several wholes in his body.
In one of the following days Walts funeral is held and the church is loaded of people. Both family and hmong people are there. When they afterwards are reading the testament his family is in shock when they get to know that his testament his house to the church and the car to Thao.
The film ends with Thao driving away in the Gran Torino with Daisy.
