|
|
|---|
A Perfect World
Red Garnett .......... Clint Eastwood
Butch Haynes
......... Kevin Costner
Sally Gerber
......... Laura Dern
Phillip Perry ........ T.J. Lowther
Terry Pugh ........... Keith Szarabajka
Tom Adler ............ Leo Burmester
Bobby Lee
............ Bradley Whiteford
Warner Bros. presents a film directed
by Clint Eastwood. Produced by Mark Johnson and
David Valdes. Written by John Lee Hancock. Photographed by Jack N. Green. Edited by Joel Cox. Music by Lennie Niehaus. Running time: 136 minutes. Classified:
PG-13 (on appeal for violence, sexual content and language).
Some critics have raved over this
film, Clint Eastwood's first directorial
project since "Unforgiven." Like the
previous film, this one emphasizes moral ambiguity: the good in the worst
of us and the bad in the best. I was not nearly as impressed with this
effort, however.
Butch Haynes, played by Kevin Costner,
is a fellow who has had a rotten childhood and has spent most of
his recent years in jail. He breaks out of prison with a fellow
inmate and (mainly because of his colleague's wildness) winds up with an
eight-year-old hostage. The boy's mother is a Jehovah's Witness, who has
never permitted him to go trick or treating at Halloween time, or to
celebrate Christmas, or to go to carnivals or fairs. He has never eaten
cotton candy. He has understandably developed as a shy young man, not much
at ease in public. His real father left the family years before.
When Costner's
fellow escapee tries to molest the boy, Costner
kills him and leaves his body in a cornfield. Then he and the boy drive
away together, pursued by Texas Rangers headed by Clint Eastwood's character, Red Garnett.
Haynes becomes a surrogate father to
"Buzz," as he calls the boy. He teaches him by experience all
the things from which his mother shielded him: guns, cars, sex, trick or
treating.
Eastwood's
Garnett feels the guilt of having sent young Butch to a juvenile prison years ago, though he was
quite warranted in doing that. Butch learned
there how to be a criminal, and he was never able to be anything else.
The story climaxes as Haynes and Buzz receive hospitality at the home of a
black farmer. The farmer slaps his own little boy around, and Haynes becomes so angry he nearly kills him. To stop
him from doing this, Buzz shoots Haynes and runs
away; but eventually the boy comes to recognize how much he loves
his kidnapper. In time, Butch is killed by a
dumb-but-imperious police sharpshooter who wrongly thinks Butch is armed. Buzz goes back to his Mom but, we
imagine, will never be the same again.
There are routine plot elements
here: jail break, abduction, car chases, detective work, growing
friendship between kidnapper and victim. But the film plays down these
elements in favor of the personal relationships. It is essentially
about fathers (biological and surrogate) and sons: Haynes
and his rotten father, Buzz and his, Haynes and
Buzz, Garnett and Haynes, the
black sharecropper and his boy. Cruelty to children is the one thing Haynes cannot abide. That is, we are told in
effect, what provokes him to his most violent acts. But as a
surrogate father to Buzz, he gains a certain nobility, according to
the film.
As a Christian, however, I resisted
the movie's values. I will not comment on the theological differences
between the Jehovah's Witness cult and Christian orthodoxy, though there
are many. Nor will I expound on the difference between the
evident legalism of Buzz's mother and the ethics of Scripture,
though much could be said about that as well. Hollywood knows nothing
of such distinctions. To this film, the Jehovah's Witnesses are
bad, not because they are heretical or legalistic, but because
they stand for "straight" values, against the values of
Hollywood and modern culture. On this score, I will have to side with
the Witnesses. Buzz's mother is trying hard to stand against the
tide of decadence. For all her heresy and legalism, she is trying
to shield her boy from the world. Haynes is
trying, essentially, to undo that. The film sides with Haynes;
I do not.
Thus for all the film's attempts at moral profoundity (i.e. recognizing moral ambiguity), it mostly left me cold. Butch Haynes is a murderer and a thief. Is he to be excused because of his bad upbringing? Does he redeem himself by arousing Buzz's selfish instincts? Not in my book. Of course it is hard not to sympathize with any character played by Kevin Costner. All his movements (in all of his films) proclaim that he is a nice guy. But the choice of Costner for this role is part of the film's propaganda. It virtually commands us to sympathize with Haynes. Can we resist that command? Another reason not to leave your critical faculties at home when you go to the movies.