no country for broken boys

Asked my friend Steve if I could borrow his HBO Max to watch a movie with my parents again. He said only if I watched this Clint Eastwood movie from 1993. So we did that, but now we have his log in and can watch whatever we please tomorrow! Fair trade.

A rocket ride through the world of men and all tje laws, written or otherwise, that regulate it. Every bit with Costner and the kid is a marvel. The stuff inside the trailer can be more staid despite some wonderful back and forth between Eastwood and Dern, but the intercut between lawless and order is essential to what the movie is doing and it moves very strong from one to the other. Good to know this still makes me cry hard as it has been a few years. My pick for greatest movie made in Hollywood after the studio system collapsed.

hell no, phillip. good size for a boy your age

most of the runtime consists of intercutting costner teaching a jehova's witness youth about outlaw moralism with clint the texas ranger fighting off the governer's criminologist (laura dern) and the fbi's sharpshooter (bradley whitford), who were assigned to assist his highway manhunt, which is... perfect. eastwood is a master of balancing the melodramatic and the procedural, which makes the clash of the two at the climax that much more painful. whitford looking down the scope, followed by a series of reaction shots that seem to punctuate the dramatic thread of each character. buzz asks butch "are you bad?", and this ironic question has as much weight as henry fonda's "by jing, that's all there is to it. right and wrong" in young mr. lincoln. myth-making in the gray area.

It’s easy to forget stuff. 

Like what’s 7 multiplied by 9? Or how do you say octopus in French? Or what was the B-Side of I Wanna Be Your Man?*

You can even forget how good Kevin Costner is. It can slip your mind. A Perfect World is a really good reminder. The scenes with him and the kid got that Paper Moon type magic. 

An enjoyable rewatch. 

*63, Poulpe, Stoned

what in the daddy issues -

Um dos grandes filmes já feitos sobre pais e filhos e as diversas maneiras como esse tipo de relação se manifesta. Além disso, é um grande êxito porque entende que humanizar personagens vai além de forjar carisma ou encontrar formas de justificar seus erros, mas sim de retratá-los tanto em suas virtudes quanto em seus defeitos, fugindo de qualquer dicotomia fajuta de bem x mal: são personagens que erram, acertam e até erram para corrigir/evitar erros dos outros. E, ironicamente, os únicos coadjuvantes unidimensionais acabam sendo punidos de alguma forma.

Men trying to be fathers, boys trying to be sons. What a wonderful film.

This is one of Clint Eastwood's best films as both an actor and a director.

It is absolutely Kevin Costner's best film as an actor.

"Phillip, we gotta be on our own. Seek foolish destiny, that sorta thing."

the procedural meets road movie meets outlaw morality. its own type of tender adventure flick. kevin costner is just something else, when he left focus he took away the last breed of soft but principled, tough but loving father figure protag in movies. laura dern is smokin in this movie and you cant go wrong with another in the barrel for clint's disdain for the cruelty of police canon post-vulgar enforcer flicks / dirty harry era. a breezy summer movie for sure.

A Perfect Movie... Well Almost

Pensar que Eastwood dirigió esta obra después de romper todo con "The Unforgiven", uno pensaria que apretaria el freno y seria algo menor y mas relajado, bueno, relajado es pero para nada menor a lo que venia haciendo.

A Perfect World es una película redonda y reconfortante, una road-movie como las que ya no abundan. Costner nos regala una de sus mejores interpretaciones, dandole vida al bandido Butch, con el cual empatizamos desde el comienzo, sabiendo que no es un buen hombre, pero tampoco de lo peor.

SAY YOU LOVE HIM FFS !

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Made at a time when Costner wasn’t on anyone’s ‘favorite actor to work with’ lists, this is actually a well done thriller about the pursuit of a man who kidnaps a child. Costner shines in one of his most overlooked roles, and Dern follows up her work in Jurassic Park with a part that could have been ten miles better than her part in that blockbuster, but Eastwood would rather focus on the relationship between Costner and the kidnapped boy. One of my go to 90s pleasures.

Solid existential-road-chase with good performances (including Laura Dern being a great balance of assertive and respectful as she sharp-elbows her way into 1963 Texas law enforcement). It turned out to be more grisly than I was expecting, with Kevin Costner's guy being more of a thug and less of a gentelman bandit than I'd expected. This helps give the film stakes and an anchor in reality that most of its type don't have, but also made it a little less fun and the ending feel all the more inevitable.

So, one of many watchable, interesting not-quite-classics from the Clint Eastwood library.

Ich wusste nich mehr, dass der Film neben der Tragik auch so viele dezent komische Momente hat. Schade, dass nicht alle Filme von Clint so gut sind.

Phenomenal cast, great story, beautiful cars and Kevin Costner is a pretty dreamy convict.

so gut!
jetzt will ich außerdem noch mehr Filme mit Kevin Costner oder Laura Dern sehen..

Un road movie sur la paternité emmené par un Kevin Kostner étincelant.