disgusting, overrated, pointless

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

But the world isn't a perfect place and the only things ever swept by Clint Eastwood's follow-up to "Unforgiven" are these futile academic observations... the underrated masterpiece flies higher than that. And I'm beginning to detect patterns within 'Eastwoodian' characters. Antihero is too formulaic a term to encapsulate the levels of human depth they usually reveal. To put it in less fancy words, there's the idea that doing something bad doesn't make you bad, while never doing anything wrong doesn't make you a saint either. Maybe it's all about trying to be better or make the world, a better, if not perfect, place.And this is sweetly captured by the relationship between Butch, wonderfully played by Kevin Costner, and Philip (T.J. Lowther), a 8-year old boy, raised by a devout Jehovah's Witness mother. Philip will find more exhilaration and freedom as a hostage he never truly was than as a child he never truly was either. Butch offers Philip the kind of childhood he was deprived from... partly because of the very man who chases him, Texas Ranger Red Garnett, played by Clint Eastwood. Once again, the veteran actor masters the art of silence that speaks volumes. And more powerfully than revelations or action, we know the man from his reactions toward his travelling companions, a young criminologist with a more modern approach (Laura Dern) and a detestable trigger-happy sharpshooter (Bradley Whitford). Red doesn't act much in this film, maybe because some actions he ended up regretting suddenly resurfaced. The wounds of the past are the point of convergence of these two narratives.And it's noteworthy that the film is set in Texas in 1963 and often alludes to Kennedy's upcoming visit and the election year. This contextualization brings an odd feeling of impending doom, that the future's uncertainty can be more difficult to handle than the past's definitiveness. For instance, when Butch and his mentally unstable cellmate (Keith Szarabajka) escape from jail, a man is killed in the process. Eastwood keeps it off-screen, it's unlikely that Butch is the killer, but we don't need the empathy to work so early.It's possible that Butch isn't the killing type but in Eastwood's universe, certainty is one luxury we can't afford. Sometimes, it takes a hostage taker to set you free or a criminal to straighten you out, but sometimes, you just can't tell. What we see though is that Phillip is a fatherless kid and Butch an adult whose abusive father made him took the wrong path. We can all agree that childhood can shape one man's future for better or worse. We can't change the past but maybe this capability to 'regret' is the box that contains the raw diamond of humanity. But once again with Clint Eastwood, you can't tell what might happen. Child abuse is perhaps the one crime that Butch can't tolerate and in a heartbreaking scene where he finds out his host slaps his kid and treats him like dirt, a button was pushed and then he takes a decision that totally derails the journey. Screenwriter John Lee Hancock never paints a black and white morality, it portrays humanity as a world made of intricate interactions, where we owe a little bit of ourselves to persons of various degrees of goodness... a well-intentioned law enforcer affects a kid's life negatively, a criminal allows a boy to grow up nicely."A Perfect World" is one of these films that seem so simple yet so affecting, it follows a straightforward narrative, an escape, a chase but then a series of unpredictable steps, some comedic, some dramatic, turn the experience to something extraordinarily truthful to life. It reminded me of a film like "The Defiant Ones" where two fugitives depended on the kindness or the selfishness of people who crossed their paths and ultimately became better persons. "A Perfect World" is a good experience in the sense that the people in this film try to act for the better, to be better, or just preventing the worse. It's interesting that the film started with Halloween. "Trick or treat?" ask the kids, as if they summarized in one simple sentence the idea that you either treat a kid well or end up regretting it. Philip wasn't mistreated by not being allowed to play with his friends, but Butch gave him a loophole to the world and allowed him to widen his scope and realize that the world didn't revolve around the austere teachings of his mother, and the belief in a perfect hereafter.Now I won't spoil the film but the last line is perhaps the truest that could be ever said: "I don't know". Who knows anyway? Some persons just don't know and only act according to what they think is the right thing, like Red did with Butch, like Philip's mother, like several characters in Eastwood movies. Some of them actually know they do the wrong things and get their comeuppance or at least, an ultimate warning, maybe they're the closest to 'villains' in Eastwood's movies.But "A Perfect World" is too deep for its own good, having been ignored by the awards, especially Kevin Costner who proves that when being given the perfect role, he can act his way out. It is certainly his most brilliant performance, elevating him to an almost-equal to Eastwood. I'm not kidding, these men love America and embody levels of goodness that transcend the ways of the law. Both are somewhat losers but like a poet like Huston would have painted them, which means that in a perfect world, they would be winners.And if there's anything we learn from Clint Eastwood is that the world isn't perfect, but as his friend Morgan Freeman would say, quoting the writer, it's still worth fighting for... who knows? Eastwood might be the Hemingway of American Cinema, the last Mohican of a dying breed of artists.

There are certain movies that leave you thinking about it. Many times. Scenes keep crossing your mind. This is one of those! The story begins and ends with the same shot. If the beginning makes you curious the ending leaves you heartbroken. And Irony. When the little boy, Phillip, has the best chance of running away, he decides to accompany Costner because he stole a Halloween costume. He finds those pleasures of life in the company of his kidnapper which in his mother's he never did. Costner himself, when rebuking young Cleve's father for assaulting the child, makes an enemy out of himself. His repugnance for child-beaters stands in stark contrast with his own methods. The duality hits you in the face. Something, Buzz is unable to withstand. Like all Eastwood movies this too is a slow paced drama. The director effectively communicates that not all criminals are born, some are created. There can be niches for love and affection in them too. Certain circumstances can make those reservoirs flow. Time and again, Clint Eastwood keeps coming up with a gem of a story. Don't go by the rating. This one is not to be missed.

A Perfect World is a fantastic movie with a very well developed storyline and an outstanding cast.I was really expecting this to be a very thrilling crime movie,but it was very much a drama that follows an escaped convict who kidnaps a child that soon makes him change his way.Kevin Costner does an outstanding job portraying this criminal,and the relationship between him and the young child is so sweet and sentimental that it is very hard to believe they are just acting,Clint Eastwood's directing in this is absolutely brilliant.The movie is still very much a thriller as well though,there are some very intense scenes and the characters dialogue is very dramatic and well delivered.Surprisingly sweet and a very easy story to get sucked in to,A Perfect World is a great movie that I would recommend to anyone looking for a good drama or crime film. An escaped prisoner becomes attached to the boy he kidnaps while on the run from Texas Rangers.Best Performance: Kevin Costner Worst Performance: Ray McKinnon

A Perfect World is directed by Clint Eastwood and written by John Lee Hancock. It stars Eastwood, Kevin Costner, Laura Dern, T.J. Lowther and Bradley Whitford. Music is by Lennie Niehaus and cinematography by Jack N. Green.Texas 1963 and having broken out of Huntsville Penitentiary, murderer Butch Haynes (Costner) heads for Alaska taking Phillip (Lowther) a young Jehovah's Witness hostage along the way. Pursued by Texas Ranger Red Garnett (Eastwood), the two begin to bond and learn about each other's experiences and hang-ups.Eastwood had just made the awards darling that was Unforgiven and Costner was off the back of The Bodyguard, the second highest grossing (worldwide) film of 1992. Their next venture would be A Perfect World, a small movie in terms of finance gains and trumpet blowing fanfares. Yet it's one of the most impressive films on either of their respective résumés. For Eastwood it gave him the chance to take a relatively small acting role whilst directing with a smooth assurance often lacking in today's day and age. For Costner it gave him a role to really bring out the actor that he was rarely asked to be, and he delivers in spades with a quite spellbindingly layered performance, for us the chance to watch a character and not Costner the star.On the surface it seemed like it was a standard crims on the run picture, topped up with a Stockholm Syndrome relationship between man and boy. Yet there is nothing normal about the story put forward here, nothing seedy or threateningly child murder like, but based around father and son relationships, the presence "of" in one case, the absence "of" in the other. Once Butch and Phillip (Lowther also terrific under Eastwood and Costner's promptings) are brought together by circumstance, their lives will never be the same, the can opens and out come emotional scars, repressions and childhoods tarnished and being wasted.It's an undeniably moving picture, but Eastwood is aware and subtle enough to never let the picture become mawkish. The pacing is deliberately slow and calm, the long periods of Butch and Phillip holding centre stage are only briefly interrupted by the scenes of Eastwood's Garnett and his police companions (Dern's Sally Gerber the criminologist, Whitford's FBI marksman Bobby Lee) in pursuit and travelling in an airstream trailer. These are necessary breaks that never outstay their welcome, and they add a richness to the Butch characterisation as Garnett, under Gerber's guidance, comes to understand much more about the man he pursues. There's also a little humour in that trailer, giving good characterisations away from the sombre tone waiting around the next corner.There is very little action so the shoot-out loving crowd are advised this isn't the film for them, but the pic never lacks for tension, with the key scene at a black family farm as taut as it gets and acted with supreme skill by all involved. This is a throwback type of film, where narrative strength is first and foremost, something that allows actors to work with characters that have depth, to be part of a relationship that is complex and absorbing to the viewer. It's still the most under rated work of Eastwood the director and Costner the actor, one of the best films of 93, in fact, one of the best films of the decade. 9/10