A PERFECT WORLD
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1993 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: This is something of a departure for Eastwood, a gritty and realistic crime drama that slowly fades into a story with warm relationships. Costner has center stage as an escaped convict who forms a father-son relationship with his young hostage. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4).
Clint Eastwood has built a career on playing violent characters, particularly his "Man with No Name" and Dirty Harry. Two films back he made UNFORGIVEN, an anti-violence Western that was nonetheless violent. There was speculation that his films would be less violent from that point on and that UNFORGIVEN was a sort of penance. The next film he starred in, IN THE LINE OF FIRE, was another film in the "Dirty Harry" mold, but Eastwood claimed that he had no artistic control and was just an actor playing a part. Eastwood has now directed his first film since UNFORGIVEN. Like UNFORGIVEN it is a film with some violence, but at the same time does not glorify that violence.
Kevin Costner plays Butch Haynes, who breaks out of a Texas prison on Halloween night of 1963 together with Terry Pugh, a brutal hood. Along the way they pick up an eight-year-old hostage, Philip, played by T. J. Lowther. On their trail is Texas Ranger Red Garnett (Eastwood) who has been assigned a state criminologist Sally Gerber (Laura Dern). This is a Clint Eastwood film, so of course Dern is along to play the required female lead to be subjected to the Eastwood character's insensitive male chauvinism in the early parts of the film but to be won over by Eastwood in the later parts of the film. In this outing, however, Eastwood and Dern take a backseat to Costner and Lowther, who play the real main characters of the film, Haynes and Philip. Eventually it is just Haynes and Philip on the run and learning to get along with each other. Lowther is attracted to the father figure he was missing at home, Costner is torn between his anti-social urges and his desire to be a better father figure to Philip than Haynes's father had been to Haynes. Costner make a very believable Texas con.
Much of the story is told with very little mood music as Eastwood adopts the realistic style of IN COLD BLOOD and BADLANDS. Unfortunately that is only the part of the story about the fugitives. The witty in- fighting of the police on the case and comic bits involving an aluminum trailer serving as police headquarters for the Texas backroad chase tend to sabotage the almost documentary style of the fugitives' story. Eventually this part of the plot gives in to more humanistic values and we get some more background music to tell us how to feel about what we are experiencing.
Costner's character is one of the more complex ones we have seen on the screen in a while, particularly in an Eastwood film. His unfinished business with his own father has led him to idolize children and his violence is usually triggered by his seeing a child not being treated well. He is infuriated to discover that Philip's religion, Jehovah's Witness, does not allow the boy to trick or treat or to go to carnivals and does not distinguish between religious restrictions and parental brutality. It is the combination of his own unintended cruelty to his young companion and his desire to protect the boy that lead the story to its denouement.
Eastwood makes a few beginner's mistakes not expected of an experienced director. There are serious continuity flaws, particularly with arm positions in a key scene at both the beginning and end of the film. This combined with the uneven style do not sink the film, but certainly count against it. My rating for A PERFECT WORLD would be a less than perfect +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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