A PERFECT WORLD (B+) is the second 1993 film starring Clint Eastwood and featuring a criminal manhunt. Like in Wolfgang Peterson's thrilling In the Line of Fire, Eastwood heads up another manhunt except this time he's head of the Texas State Police in the 1960's and he's searching for Kevin Costner's escaped convict. Costner plays Butch Haynes, a smart and cunning convict who broke out of prison with another petty criminal whose ineptitude leads them to take a young boy hostage. A situation with two fugitives on the run with a kidnapped boy (named Phillip) becomes hot news, especially during a Governor's campaign, and Eastwood's "Red" and Laura Dern's prison specialist are called in on the job. There's some nice humor in the film and it's easy to watch. The cop/robber chase is part The Getaway style procedural Texas manhunt, but the core of the film is the relationship that buds between Costner's Haynes and the young boy Phillip who has grown up so far without a father. There are several nice moments where the film uses this relationship to offer insightful commentary on masculinity and fatherhood. Eastwood is often attracted to how the cycle of violence continues itself (see Unforgiven & Mystic River) and that's present here, but it's largely examined through father-son relationships and how their imperfections can spiral through generations. In a bit of a throwaway line a character speaking to Laura Dern's specialist says, "Well, in a perfect world, Miss Gerber, we'd all lock arms and thrash the bushes until he turned up." Her response is, "Well, in a perfect world, things like this wouldn't happen in the first place, right?" The film makes a compelling but heartbreaking case that fatherhood is one of the central planks in breaking that perfect world.
Review of A Perfect World
