Walt is depicted as an irritable and prejudiced Korean War veteran whose aging Metro Detroit neighborhood has become home to Hmong immigrants and is plagued with gang violence.

Walt is introduced as an elderly Polish-American whose wife of 50 years dies, leaving him alone in his Rust Belt neighborhood of Highland Park, Michigan.

Walt is a decorated Korean War combat veteran, having served in the United States Army's 1st Cavalry Division.

One night, Walt catches 15-year-old Thao Vang Lor attempting to steal his Ford Torino as part of a Hmong gang initiation.

He begins to bond with the Vang Lor family, recognizing their traditional values are more in line with his own beliefs than he originally thought.

Walt, plagued by coughing fits and occasionally spitting up blood, visits the doctor and seemingly receives a poor prognosis.

After making some preparations including a Catholic confession, Walt locks Thao in his basement, expressing that he wants to save him from being haunted by violence.

Walt initially is depicted as openly prejudiced, specifically toward East Asian people, often using ethnic slurs such as "gook" to describe them.

Todd McCarthy of Variety said that Walt's "racist mutterings, which employ every imaginable epithet for Asians, are blunt and nasty, but Eastwood grunts them out in an over-the-top way that provokes laughs, and his targets are no less sparing of him.

[1] Mark Jenkins of National Public Radio says "He hates everything new or foreign, so much so that he growls at the modern world like a junkyard dog.

[3] John Serba of The Grand Rapids Press says that the intolerance demonstrated by Walt "goes deeper than skin color" since he is also against stupidity, "trait that transcends superficialities".

[4] Serba adds that "his definition of unintelligent is broader than the average person's, thus, his conversations tend to become confrontations quickly, and perhaps surprisingly, to our amusement.

"[9] Anthony Breznican of USA Today said that even though Clint Eastwood had served in the Korean War (in a non-combat role) he "has little in common with Kowalski.

"[9] Jenkins explained that Walt is "a man of action who's offended by the Catholic church's dogmatic insistence that it understands mortality better than a grizzled vet who's seen comrades die.

"[4] Serba argues that the "suggestiveness makes it easier to overlook the inexperience of his supporting cast and the occasionally overstated, transparent dialogue.

[8] Schenk said that individuals told him that he would not be successful in selling a script that had an elderly man as the main character, and especially one who sounds like he has racist views.

"[11] Modleski said that three female reviewers, Manohla Dargis, Ann Hornaday, and Stephanie Zacharek, "seem particularly invested in shoring up "Clint's" masculinity, denying, in a sense, the impotence that his character's failure to use violence except to beget more violence against those he would defend might appear to suggest" and that "[t]he attention they lavish on Eastwood's body is noteworthy.