David Mackenzie’s critically acclaimed Hell or High Water, a 2016 movie nominated for Best Picture, reminded me of a quiet, subdued gem from 1993 that undoubtedly inspired a director just entering his prime. Clint Eastwood (Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby) was fresh off Unforgiven (a movie that earned him his first Best Director Oscar win as well as Best Picture of the Year) and the critically acclaimed, equally fan-adored In the Line of Fire. A Perfect World was Eastwood’s third movie between 1992 and 1993, the most successful two-year period of the most exceptional director/actor combination in cinema history.
Quiet, soft, and subdued, the public wanted to see what Eastwood would direct after Unforgiven, the best western movie of its generation. He chose a Bonnie-and-Clyde caper with the father-son elements of classics like Bicycle Thieves, East of Eden, Shane, It’s a Wonderful Life, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Like Eastwood, A Perfect World’s lead (Kevin Costner) was arguably at the height of his career, having starred in Dances With Wolves, Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, No Way Out, and The Untouchables in the six years prior. It was undoubtedly a 1993 Eastwood-directed/Costner-led movie that audiences were likely chomping at the bit for when they first saw the trailer. A Perfect World did not disappoint. Twenty-seven years later, it is even more iconic than when it was released.
Set in rural Texas on a Halloween night in 1963, Butch Haynes (Costner) and Terry Pugh (Keith Szarabajka – Argo, We Were Soldiers) are in a heavily guarded correctional facility. Dangerous and now armed after stealing a guard’s car, the duo finds themselves in even more trouble than a prison escape when Terry kills the guard. Looking for a vehicle that local authorities won’t be searching for, the pair ends up at the home of a Jehovah’s Witness single mother and her three children. Thinking they need a hostage to help with their escape, Butch and Terry take her eight-year-old son Philip. Terry first tries to rape Phillip’s mother and later tries to molest the young boy. It doesn’t take long to realize Terry won’t be around for long.
On the run, Butch and Phillip begin to bond. Rather than make this a movie about a chase of cops and robbers, it becomes a character study of a man and a young boy who realize their similarities far outweigh their differences. Eastwood shows that a man who does bad things isn’t necessarily evil. As we learn each character’s backstory, we discover that both have an absent father, but Butch, a hardened criminal, has sent him a postcard from Alaska. Butch’s ultimate goal is to reunite with him. Butch’s way of talking with him gives him some of life’s simpler joys (RC Cola, trick-or-treating, driving a car), protects him, and, most importantly, teaches him to defend himself.
Their run takes them through the Texas panhandle as they attempt to cross into Oklahoma. Hunting them down in the Texas Governor’s state-of-the-art RV are Texas Ranger Red Garnett (Eastwood), forensics expert Sally Gerber (Laura Dern – Marriage Story, Wild), and an FBI agent named Bobby Lee (Bradley Whitford – Get Out, Saving Mr. Banks). With its driver and a control center of fancy gadgets, the vehicle is high-tech but less adept at physically chasing smaller sedans and pickup trucks. Butch always seems to be one step ahead of his captors. A story between Red and Butch makes this personal for the ranger. He has been struggling to come to grips with it for many years. He was the one who encouraged a job that unjustly sentenced Butch to prison for a crime he committed. Red realizes Butch didn’t deserve such a harsh punishment because he feared Butch would become a dangerous criminal like his father, and he believed keeping him locked up would do society a favor. It’s a decision that has haunted him for years and could impair his judgment now as he seeks atonement.
While not an action movie, there are enough close encounters and car chases to keep that audience base interested. But this is much more a character-driven drama that shows Costner’s underrated prowess as a leading man. With just one acting Oscar nomination (Dances With Wolves) to his credit despite forty years of diversified roles, A Perfect World may be the finest performance of his career. Butch goes from jovial to aggressive and from reflective to intense in the blink of an eye. We see a carefree soul who wants to do the right thing, but one stifled by a prison sentence that ran far too long. His anger explodes when he sees harm done to innocent people, which makes it so ironic that he has kidnapped a young child. But I think he believes that Terry was more the kidnapper, and now that he has hurt the man who tried to hurt Phillip, he is now the young boy’s protector. I believe Butch sees Phillip as the son he never got to have because he was sentenced to prison before he could begin that part of his life.
Butch reminds me of the Chris Pine character Toby in Hell or High Water. Situational factors cause him to break the law. But as he does so, he’s haunted by the conflict between right and wrong and by his impact on civilians’ lives. Like Buch, Toby reaches the point where he goes out of his way to help strangers to compensate for the crimes he is committing. Like in A Perfect World, Toby and his much more rebellious and disturbed brother, Tanner, are on the run from a seasoned law enforcement official intent on bringing them down.
The Texas setting serves as the perfect backdrop for lead characters who disrupt simpler ways of living. Why not use the largest contiguous state in the country as the stage? This gives the story an unlimited physical space that slowly shows these lead characters aren’t confined by any rules outside the ones they govern. As a result, we have two movies that are free of boundaries, where everything seems believable, even when capture is inevitable. Suppose others could follow the blueprint of either of these movies before taking a tangent with their own creative spins. In that case, we’d continue producing taut, entertaining films with multi-dimensional characters struggling between right and wrong.
Plot 8.5/10
Character Development 9/10
Character Chemistry 9/10
Acting 9/10
Screenplay 9.5/10
Directing 9.5/10
Cinematography 10/10
Sound 8/10
Hook and Reel 9/10
Universal Relevance 9/10
91.5%
A
Movies You Might Like If You Liked This Movie
- Road to Perdition
- No Country for Old Men
- The Town
- Gran Torino
- A Simple Plan