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In Clint Eastwood's latest turn in front of the camera,"Gran Torino," his crotchety character might be named Walt Kowalski, but he's still the same squinting, growling misanthrope who has a chip on his shoulder, an old-school code of honor he lives by, and a deadly arsenal to back it up. You might as well call it "Dirty Harry: The Twilight Years."

Walt is a Korean War vet and recent widower, retired from a blue-collar career on an automobile production line, living in the same old pocket of Detroit that all of his friends have fled to the suburbs from. A mint condition Gran Torino sits in his driveway as a reminder to the kind of honest, well-made product Americans were once proud of.

But Walt is a man as out-of-date as his wheels. Lately, his block has been overrun by Hmong immigrants from southeast Asia, and needless to say, he's none too pleased about it.

But when one of them, a quiet teenage boy played by Bee Vang, is harassed and beaten, Eastwood forms a teacher-pupil bond with him and eventually goes all Magnum Force, dishing out violent payback from the business end of a shotgun.

The first half of the film isn't anything you haven't seen before. It's basically "The Karate Kid" classed up by the presence of a Hollywood icon.

Eastwood, who spends most of his time directing these days, had been away from acting since "Million Dollar Baby," and it's great to see him back up there, bigger than life. If the character's a bit familiar, it's still a treat to see him again.

Now for a look at what else is new on DVD: in "Pink Panther 2" Steve Martin returns as Inspector Clouseau; in "Confessions of a Shopaholic" Isla Fisher (of "The Wedding Crashers" fame) stars in a dizzy, ditzy comedy; and in "Waltz With Bashir" a haunting animated Israeli film tells the story of the country's 1982 war with Lebanon.