"In Eastwood's filmography knowing how to use a gun and the consequences of that knowledge are addressed in the hands of fathers and their sons, whether they be surrogate or natural born. The most famous example of this is in Unforgiven (1992) where William Munny (Clint Eastwood) consoles “the Schofield Kid” (Jaimz Woolvett) after he kills a man for the first time. The Kid is struggling to grasp what he has just done. He's in disbelief, chugging whiskey and holding back tears before Munny utters a few words on killing that resonate beyond Unforgiven and are applicable to many of Eastwood's films. “It's a hell of a thing, killing a man. You take away all he's got...and all he's ever…

After tearing down the western in Unforgiven, Clint Eastwood decided to do some mythmaking of his own, about an outlaw instead of a lawman. His mastery of relaxed pacing makes this a pleasure to watch, but not without darkness - the late sequence with Costner's Butch Haynes coming harrowingly close to gunning down a family In-Cold-Blood-style is a great illustration of how heroes sometimes (maybe inevitably) end up failing us.

But my favorite part of the movie is T.J. Lowther as Butch's 8-year-old "hostage" Phillip. Movie history is full of precocious, hyperverbal youngsters who talk like grownups and are able to fully articulate all of their complex emotions in a way that adults aren't even able to in the real…

A Perfect World was a commercial success, but critically it is considered one of Clint Eastwood's underrated greats. It does have some tonal issues, never really being able to balance its generally good-nature with its more unsettling subtexts. What it flourishes from is a clean, uncomplicated narrative that knows where it is going and reaches its destination cleanly. The ultimate conclusion is far from surprising, but the journey of getting there is both heartwarming and provoking, a potent mix of feelings. Although, it doesn't truly come to its own until the final leg where all the bottled up emotions and gradually developed themes come to a head.

The plot is simple: an escaped convict takes a young boy hostage and…

A PERFECT WORLD (15)
D: Clint Eastwood
Warner Bros./Malpaso (Mark Johnson & David Valdes)
US 1993
138 mins
 
Drama/Crime/Thriller
 
W: John Lee Hancock
DP: Jack N. Green
Ed: Joel Cox & Ron Spang
Mus: Lennie Niehaus
 

Kevin Costner (Robert Haynes), Clint Eastwood (Chief Red Garnett), Laura Dern (Sally Gerber), T.J. Lowther (Philip Perry), Keith Szarabajka (Terry Pugh)
 
Released in the years when Kevin Costner was still a huge box office draw, A Perfect World is essentially a mix of buddy-buddy and chase movies, all against the setting of America's seemingly never-ending highways.
Costner plays an escaped convict who strikes up an unlikely father-son relationship with a seven-year-old boy he takes hostage, whilst veteran lawman Clint Eastwood hunts them…