Review: A Perfect World

Kevin Costner and Keith Szarabajka are escaped convicts in 1963 who kidnap a young Jehovah’s witness boy (T.J. Lowther) after an attempt at robbery doesn’t go so well. The charming, but still clearly dangerous Costner seems to form a bond with the boy (he’s got a problem with anyone who mistreats children, and both had/have absentee fathers), and tries to give him all the fun things that his family’s religion frowns upon. There is no doubt, however, that he’s also manipulating the boy into helping him whilst on the run. Meanwhile, aging Texas Ranger Red Garnett (Clint Eastwood) is searching all over Texas with his team in a fancy new mobile command post (i.e. A trailer at the back of a big truck). Laura Dern plays a female criminologist tagging along at the request of the Governor. Her theories and overall psychobabble approach generally gets on Garnett’s nerves, and she resents the boys club and general sexism in Garnett’s approach. Bradley Whitford plays a gung-ho, frankly loathsome agent also assigned to Garnett’s crew.

 

This 1993 Clint Eastwood (“Play Misty for Me”, “Million Dollar Baby”, “Hereafter”) flick is ¾ of a good movie. Kevin Costner gives one of his best performances as a complex and interesting bad guy. Every scene featuring him and young T.J. Lowther is really terrific stuff (I have no idea why Lowther hasn’t acted all that much since). It was a really smart idea putting Costner and Lowther together in a road movie kind of dynamic, given both of their upbringings, not to mention Costner’s differing persona to his fellow escapee. I liked Keith Szarabajka as Costner’s more overtly nasty cohort, his voice alone is memorable (and unsurprisingly, it’s his voice that has kept the actor busiest in the years since).

 

Unfortunately, Eastwood himself doesn’t hold up the other end of the film quite as well, at least not in the way the screenplay by John Lee Hancock (who later wrote and directed the overrated sports drama “The Blind Side”) unfolds. His performance as the gruff lawman is perfectly fine, if little different from the usual Eastwood persona. It’s just that the character isn’t as interesting (I’m not sure a manhunt flick is the right film for a laconic, laidback lawman character), and his manhunt is completely perfunctory.

 

The conclusion also lacks a certain punch, not to mention it’s a little too leisurely paced, which is surely partly why it wasn’t a big box-office success at the time, let alone well-remembered today. When you add a completely irritating and clichéd performance from the extremely lightweight Laura Dern (in a role screaming for a Rene Russo, let alone for more depth), as I said earlier, you end up with ¾ of a good movie at best.

 

Still, it’s worth seeing for Costner, who for some reason gave off old-fashioned movie star vibes to me here (Frank Sinatra and Paul Newman specifically came to mind).

 

Rating: C+