Last year Chrysler’s Eminem-starring Imported from Detroit was one of the most popular Super Bowl commercials of the year. In 2012 they went back to the well, getting Clint Eastwood to deliver a rousing speech on Halftime in America.
By the time it was over, and Eastwood was telling you the world was about to Get It from a resurgent America, it was hard to avoid breaking into a U S A chant and marching off to buy an American car. I think I felt the same way after watching this commercial as I did when Obama announced Osama bin Laden’s death.
Then, unfortunately for the dealership, it occurred to me that Eastwood’s wordy, repetitive speech didn’t seem to mean anything at all. It remains a great commercial, mostly because he’s Clint Eastwood and Chrysler’s ad people have turned in two great pieces of Detroit malaise cinematography in a row, but if you heard Newt Gingrich deliver this speech you’d probably just wish he for him to go back to talking about bases on the moon.