5 - "A Perfect World" (1993)

      On it's surface, A Perfect World could be a typical "guy" action movie. It has a prison break, a kidnapping, a couple of murders, a police chase across the state and a final showdown between good guy and bad guy. This movie could have have become just that and it may have gone on to make tons of money at the box office. Director Clint Eastwood throws us a curveball though. Yes, all of those things mentioned are in this movie...but it's not about them. Once you dig under the surface, you get the true roots of the story and what is there is a brilliant study into relationships, especially one between a father (or father figure) and a son. In an earlier blog, I defended Kevin Costner as an actor. I felt he has gotten a bad rap over the years and people don't realize how great, and popular, he was from the mid-80's to the mid-90's. Out of all the roles he has been in, I believe that this is the best acting he has ever done. He fits his character, Butch Haynes, perfectly and if I was giving out imaginary "all-time" Oscars, his performance here would probably win my Best Actor award. That's how I highly I think of this movie and the job he does in it.
     As the movie opens, Costner's Butch Haynes, and a fellow inmate, are escaping from jail. They manage to get out and go on the run. While looking for a car to steal, the other inmate, a guy named Pugh, breaks into a house and starts harassing a woman who is up cooking breakfast. The fracas causes the woman's children to wake up, one of them being a 9-year old boy named Phillip (T.J. Lowther). When the neighbors start to realize what is going on and try to help out, Haynes and Pugh escape, taking Phillip as a hostage. When they stop at a store later on, Pugh tries to molest Phillip and Haynes, not approving of harming the child, "takes care of" Pugh. Haynes and Phillip take off together, all the while being pursued by the Texas Rangers, led by Chief Red Garnett (Clint Eastwood). Garnett is joined by three fellow rangers, a criminologist (Laura Dern), and a silent, creepy sharpshooter (Bradley Whitford) who has been sent by the FBI to tag along. The team roams the roads of Texas in a Airglide Trailer that serves as the mobile command headquarters (this setup provides some of the funnier moments in the film), in search of Butch and the boy. As they drive across Texas, Phillip starts to admire Butch and doesn't fear him any longer. Phillip has only been raised by his mother, who has raised the family to be Jehovah's Witnesses so they don't participate in a lot of fun activities everyone else enjoys. This bothers Butch, who tells Phillip he has a right to experience things like the fair, trick-or-treating, and Christmas. Slowly, we see Butch becoming the father figure that Phillip has never had. But there is something deeper there, we learn Butch was not treated well by his parents when he was younger and he ended up going to jail at a young age, something that Garnett may have played a role in. Butch sees Phillip as a possible way to right the wrongs of his past somehow. With the two we get a nice message about treating your kids right, and maybe they won't end up being criminals later. Butch and Phillip end up developing a friendship that is believable and provides the main backbone of the story. The movie takes a turn towards the end, climaxing in a very intense scene at the farmhouse of a black family that shelters Butch and Phillip for a night. For those who haven't seen the film, I won't tell anything from this point, but the movie goes in a direction you may not expect it to or see coming. It's one of the many things about this movie that is brilliant.
     A Perfect World is a movie that will always have a profound impact on me. The messages here are well thought out and could lead to some great discussion, even long after the credits have rolled. Clint Eastwood and Kevin Costner were both coming of Oscar successes heading into this movie, ironically both for Westerns; Unforgiven for Eastwood and Dances With Wolves for Costner. This movie didn't get the Oscar buzz but it's simply a better movie than either of those....and that's nothing those two actors should be ashamed of. A Perfect World is about as perfect as they come.