I watched a very good movie last weekend, it is A perfect world (1993) with Kevin Costner & Clint Eastwood. Heres the New York Times review, November 24, 1993 Reviews/Film: A Perfect World; Where Destiny Is Sad and Scars Never Heal By JANET MASLIN In a perfect world, says one rueful character in Clint Eastwoods quietly devastating new film, the events that shape the story of Butch Haynes and Philip Perry wouldnt have to happen. But the world in which A Perfect World unfolds is a place of sad, ineradicable scars that shape their characters destinies. Many of those scars have to do with the burdens and misapprehensions of manhood, as illustrated beautifully during the course of this eloquent road film and understood by Mr. Eastwood in subtle, profoundly moving ways. The time and place -- Texas, just before the Kennedy assassination -- tacitly heighten the films sense of needless tragedy. A Perfect World, a deeply felt, deceptively simple film that marks the high point of Mr. Eastwoods directing career thus far, could never be mistaken for a young mans movie. Nor could it pass for a reckless, action-packed tale of characters on the run. A lifetimes worth of experience colors the shifting relationship between Butch, superbly played by Kevin Costner with an unexpected toughness and passion, and Phillip (T. J. Lowther), the little boy who starts out as Butchs prisoner and winds up as his surrogate son. A plot like this has many opportunities to turn maudlin, but A Perfect World remains remarkably free of sentimentality. Instead, it is sustained by small, revealing surprises that carry Butch and Phillip ever closer to the films stunning climax. This story builds up to an event that crystallizes all of its regrets about the mistakes that are passed from father to son, and about the kind of machismo that operates on cue. I dont know nothin, mutters a stricken Mr. Eastwood, who appears in the smaller role of Red Garnett, the Texas Ranger assigned to recover Butch and Phillip, and who finally meets them in this anguished closing scene. Not one damn thing. With sober intelligence and a welcome dearth of empty heroics, the film allows the wisdom of this moment to hit home. The story begins when Butch escapes from prison along with Terry Pugh (Keith Szarabajka), a much more vicious convict. In short order, they break into the Perry house and wind up taking Phillip hostage. For Phillip, a fatherless boy cowed by his stern, religious mother, this makes for a terrifying yet thrilling brush with masculinity. Being a smart boy, Phillip quickly understands the difference between trigger-happy Terry, who isnt long for this story, and a more laconic and laid-back man like Butch. And Butch, despite his diffidence, finds himself wanting to give this boy the fatherly presence he himself never had. The film recognizes Butch as a killer. And it is discriminating enough to admire his latter-day cowboy magnetism without treating him as a hero. But it does see him as a complex and fascinating figure, a person of principle who has been damaged in ways the story only gradually reveals. The closeness between Butch and Phillip, written and acted with such understated grace, develops in ways that make sense because of Butchs own history. Meanwhile, Phillip is seen rising to the point of making moral choices, and learning to understand right and wrong on his own. A Perfect World, a rare high-powered Hollywood film that is actually about something, evokes the cinematic past in effortless, interesting ways. If its story (from a terse, colorful screenplay by John Lee Hancock) is pure western and its backdrop one of wide-open spaces, its doomed, claustrophobic sense of the modern world makes for a compelling contrast. So does the air of inevitability about its principals destinies, as do the doubts that plague Red Garnett as he tries to do what was once a Texas Rangers traditional job. Its not so simple any more. Mr. Eastwoods direction of this handsome film (with its Texas tableaux shot by Jack N. Green, also the cinematographer on Unforgiven) manages to be both majestic and self-effacing. The same can be said of his own performance, as he jokes about age and infirmity (Red drinks Geritol) while inevitably projecting substance and grit. Also on the Texas Rangers team is Laura Dern, in the small but enjoyable role of a criminologist trying to bring a modern approach to the job. Penal escape situation is what she calls this manhunt. Mr. Costners performance is absolutely riveting, a marvel of guarded, watchful character revealed through sly understatement and precise details. Despite its slow Southern tempo, this is Mr. Costners most vigorous screen performance since No Way Out, and an overdue reminder of why he is a film star of such magnitude. Mr. Eastwood also elicits uncommonly fine acting from little T. J. Lowther, who makes Phillips yearning palpable and real. Also memorable in small roles are Mr. Szarabajka, as scary and erratic as his escaped convict is meant to be, and Wayne Dehart as the sharecropper who helps out Butch and in the process sends him over the edge. Its worth pointing out that the thought of mens legacies to their children, and of their failures or frustrations in bringing up those children, has figured prominently in a number of recent films (among them My Life, Carlitos Way and the new Mrs. Doubtfire). A Perfect World gives that subject real meaning.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Dec 2014 06:19:59 +0000
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