Shot in and around Austin last summer (for all two of you who didn’t already know), Eastwood’s first film since the Oscar-sweeping Unforgiven is a taut, occasionally touching chase film that pits prison escapee/kidnapper Costner against Texas Ranger Eastwood in 1963 Texas. Having broken free from the Huntsville pen along with a morally bankrupt crony, Butch Haynes (Costner) kidnaps young Philip Perry (Lowther) during a botched attempt at car theft. Hot (more or less) on Butch’s trail is Red Garrett (Eastwood), a hardened, instinctual Ranger who feels in part responsible for Butch’s current predicament and wants to bring him in unharmed. Garrett, we are told, pulled a few strings 20 years previously in order to have a wayward Butch sent to a four-year juvenile facility instead of having him released into the custody of his abusive father, hoping the system would straighten the boy out, given time. Instead, Butch came out a career criminal, and the Ranger has carried the knowledge of that mistake on his conscience ever since. Garrett is given Governor Connally’s airstream trailer to use as a mobile headquarters during the manhunt and, much to his dismay, criminologist Sally Gerber (Dern) is sent in to assist. Meanwhile, Butch and the kidnapped boy are getting along just fine, both having come from fatherless, dysfunctional families (Phillip’s mother is a Jehovah’s Witness and won’t allow her children to go trick or treating on Halloween, a quandary that Butch resolves in a scene that is both heartfelt and hilarious — a hard mix to achieve in the best of films). As the law closes in, the father/son bond between this unlikely pair grows exponentially, until Butch’s near-murder of a rural farmhand sends their relationship into a tailspin. A Perfect World is a gorgeous, sprawling road movie, full of unique characters (more or less — Laura Dern’s criminologist seems like some sort of PC afterthought, and Eastwood’s grizzled Ranger borders on cliché) and arresting cinematography that reminds us why we live here in the first place. Costner turns in a subtly nuanced performance that is by far the best work he’s ever done, and T.J. Lowther’s Phillip is a precocious and thoroughly engaging young character, expressive and haunting in all the right ways. It’s not a perfect movie — there’s a bit more formula here than there ought to be — but it’s closer than you might think.
This article appears in November 26 • 1993 (Cover).