A Perfect World

This film may be for director/star Clint Eastwood, what Fearless was to Peter Weir -- the long forgotten masterpiece. Well, maybe it isn't quite a masterpiece, but it is a near great film that may in some ways surpass even the greatness of Eastwood's Unforgiven and Mystic River. And it is forgotten, at least I hadn't even heard of it until I decided to watch it. It concerns two men on opposite sides of the law: Kevin Costner is butch who has just escaped from prison and has taken to the roads of 1963 Texas. Clint Eastwood is the aging Texas Ranger on his trail. Now before you start thinking to yourself that you probably know where this film is going, let me assure you that you don't (unless of course you've seen it). Soon, Butch takes a hostage of sorts -- an 8 year old boy. He's not treated like a hostage, more like a partner and friend. The child is the father of the man, is the quote that I seem to have heard somewhere. Butch isn't a bad guy, nor is he simplified to the poor, misunderstood criminal. The boy isn't the cute, precocious movie kid, nor is he the comic foil to hardended criminal. Eastwood refuses to simplify his characters into stereotypes, he makes them human beings. Like many of his films, it is about violence, but it is not violent (most of the violence isn't even shown). Instead, what he does here is observes the violence from the perspective of the boy -- the fatherless boy who simultaneously admires and is frightened by the criminal. Perhaps better than in any of his other films (besides, perhaps, Unforgiven) there is a sense of pain and disappointment in the past that haunts both Costner and Eastwood's characters. It's not about winning or losing, or escaping the long arm of the law, it's about surviving and ensuring the next generation. Also of note is John Lee Hancock's screenplay which provides the depth of character and feeling that only an old hand like Eastwood could appropriately translate to the screen. It's a beautiful little film.