Review of A Perfect World (1993) by Mjs M — 25 May 2008

Clint Eastwood?s follow up to Unforgiven continues with the more enlightened take on violence seen in his later directorial works. The film takes place in Texas during the early 60s and depicts a manhunt for an escaped convict who has taken a child hostage.

The convict, played by Kevin Costner, is not the cruel killer the police think he is and an odd Stockholm-ish friendship forms between the convict and his young hostage. The film is very well directed and Costner gives what may be the best performance of his career, I usually hate him but he really impressed me here.

Eastwood is also good playing a smaller role than usual, unfortunately a lot of the supporting and bit performers are fairly weak and there are some poor bits of Hollywood stupidity. The overall story is good and the direction is great, chalk this up as a flawed but still very strong work.