Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

A Perfect World (1993)

"[For a manhunt] you need a nose like a blue tick; that's an antenna with a medulla and a helluva lot of coffee." Red Garnett

Following his Academy Award winning Unforgiven, Clint Eastwood essayed A Perfect World with Kevin Costner in the starring role as Butch Haynes, an escaped convict who kidnaps a young Jehovah's Witness boy, Phillip (TJ Lowther). The movie follows the growing relationship between Costner and the young boy, even though Costner is an outlaw and killer, the two together are quite charming.

A parallel story follows Texas Ranger Red Garnett (Clint Eastwood) who is searching for the escaped killer across the back roads of rural Texas with his crew in a trailer towed by a high performance GMC truck as an early example of a mobile command post.

This aspect of the film worked far less effectively than the Costner/Lowther segments and detracted more than added with its "keystone kops" -like hijinks and grudging admiration finally generated for the female criminologist (Laura Dern Jurassic Park) tacked on to the otherwise Neanderthal crew by the governor who is worried about the upcoming election.

The movie has a couple of weaknesses, including a weak John Lee Hancock script concerning the Texas Ranger party and their not-so-funny hijinks; a few syrupy sequences that are only somewhat effective; and Eastwood's typical propensity to keep far more film than is warranted for telling the story. In other words, lack of judicious editing. This movie has a good half hour's worth that could better have been left out without losing the story.

By far the most effective performance is by Kevin Costner as the amoral criminal, Butch, who has an affinity for little boys who are abused - ooh - even that sounds creepy! - because in the pop psychology of the script, he was abused as a little boy. He even commits homicide on these impulses and jeopardizes his escape because of them.

Beyond Kevin Costner's performance Clint Eastwood's direction makes this a snoozer that negates everything Kevin Costner - often enough derided for lack of acting skills - put into the movie. As certainly as the somewhat conservative Clint took the left wing approach of showing underneath the hardened criminal is a decent human being, he struck out entirely with this attempt to emulate the typical Hollywood fascination with the psychology of the criminal mind.

Warner Bros DVD is presented in 2.35:1 theatrical aspect, in color, and running 138 l-o-n-g minutes.


Recommended: No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV