Year of Eastwood #33

a Perfect World (1993)

Starring: Kevin Costner, Eastwood
Directed by Eastwood

Have you visited the Ebert and Roeper website? They have catalogued movie reviews for the last 20 years, and for movie geeks (like myself) it is a gold mine of cinematic fodder. It is really interesting to watch reviews of films and compare the duo’s initial reaction to the longevity of certain films. I’ve spent more than a few moments revisiting reviews of Clint’s films and am surprised at times by their reactions. For one thing, both Siskel and Ebert gave Unforgiven thumbs-down. Pretty shocking. They generally like all of the Dirty Harry sequels and another one of their favorites was a Perfect World, a film that bombed at the box office in the early 90’s.



Perfect World was Clint’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning Unforgiven. Clint teamed up with, arguably, the biggest movie star in the world - Kevin Costner. Costner had starred in blockbusters like The Untouchables and Field of Dreams - and he had even collected his own windfall of Academy Awards with Dances with Wolves. Clint seemed to have caught Kevin at the perfect time … it was still a few years until Waterworld and The Postman pretty much sank Costner for good. Reportedly, Clint only intended to direct the film, but Costner would only sign on if Clint agreed to act in the film as well.

Perfect World re-visits the Alcatraz escape, but this time it’s Kevin busting out of the slammer. Just so we know that Kevin is really a good guy, he escapes with a lunk-head who likes to beat up and/or grope everyone he comes across on the outside. These said wandering hands get the duo cornered as lunk-head has lustful intentions on a young mother - and the guys have to take a little boy hostage in order to make their getaway. Turns out the kid is a Jehovah’s Witness and has been denied all the usual childhood pleasures, such as cotton candy, cuss words, and Casper the Friendly Ghost costumes. What’s up with those JW’s? Both Prince and Michael Jackson have become devout followers … and look where they are now. To get the lunk-head out of the way, Kevin puts a bullet in his head after he gets a little too grabby with the boy.

Enter Clint, Texas Ranger, hot on the trail of the escaped convicts. Clint is mostly there for comic relief as he rambles around in a decked-out airstream trailer. Laura Dern is along for the ride as the by-the-book criminologist. They trade barbs as Dern questions Clint’s tactics in tracking down the escaped convicts. Clint’s in his serious, man-hunting mode and he ain’t got time for this chick and her fancy talking. I’m sure if they hadn’t crashed the trailer, Clint and her would have been making out in no time. Hey, that’s just the way the Clintster operates.

Clint has had his share of blockbusters, and also quite a few clunkers as well. There’s also a side category of Clint films that despite their poor reception have gone on to garner a cult following: Eiger Sanction and Paint Yer Wagon (to name a couple). Perfect World somewhat falls into that category because quite a few people praise the film as an under-rated gem (including Mr. Siskel and Mr. Ebert). Actually, the film doesn’t hold up too well in the canon of Clint’s best. The bond between the boy and Costner just doesn’t connect and there just isn’t enough development in the story to really be concerned about the final scenes of the film. It really isn’t surprising that the public’s reaction to Perfect World was a collective meh at the time, we had other things on our minds … like Prince changing his name to a symbol and all that concern if Michael Jackson would ever find the right woman.