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A Perfect World
A kidnapped boy strikes up a friendship with his captor: an escaped convict on the run from the law, headed by an honorable U.S. Marshal.
1993 · Directed by Clint Eastwood · 138 min · Drama · Crime · Thriller · Screenplay in the scene database · 19 frames
Tagline
A convict. A cop. A hostage that will make one of them a hero.
Plot
In 1963 Texas, convicts Robert "Butch" Haynes and Terry Pugh escape from the state penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas. Looking for food, Terry stumbles into a house where eight-year-old Phillip Perry lives with his devout Jehovah's Witness mother Gladys and two sisters. Butch follows and hits Terry to make him stop molesting the mother. Needing a hostage to aid their escape, Butch kidnaps Phillip. Terry and he escape and start driving north, but when Terry attempts to force himself on a half-naked Phillip, Butch shoots him knowing that sooner or later Terry will try to kill both of them.
Meanwhile, Red Garnett, chief of the Texas Rangers, is in pursuit. With criminologist Sally Gerber and FBI sharpshooter Bobby Lee in tow, Red wants to recover Butch and Phillip before they cross the Texas border. Also, though Butch does not realize it, Red has a history with him. When Butch was a teenager, he stole a car, and Red was the arresting officer. Butch was living with his abusive father, also a criminal, at the time. Due to his age and it being his first offense, Butch was supposed to get a lenient sentence. Red, however, convinced himself that prison would straighten Butch out, and asked the judge to give the young man a harsh sentence. Years later, Red realizes that the harsher sentence only made Butch into the criminal he feared he would become.
Phillip never participated in Halloween or Christmas celebrations due to his religion. Escaping with Butch, however, Phillip experiences a freedom that he finds exhilarating, as Butch allows him the kind of indulgences he has been forbidden, including the wearing of a shoplifted Casper the Friendly Ghost costume. Phillip becomes increasingly aware of his surroundings, and with encouragement from Butch, begins to learn how to make independent decisions on what is wrong and right. Butch finds himself drawn into giving Phillip the kind of fatherly presence he himself never had.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Written by: John Lee Hancock
- Cinematography: Jack N. Green
- Edited by: Ron Spang, Joel Cox
- Music: Lennie Niehaus
- Production design: Henry Bumstead
- Produced by: David Valdes, Mark Johnson
Cast
- Kevin Costner as Robert 'Butch' Haynes
- Clint Eastwood as Chief Red Garnett
- Laura Dern as Sally Gerber
- T.J. Lowther as Phillip 'Buzz' Perry
- Bradley Whitford as Bobby Lee
- Keith Szarabajka as Terry Pugh
- Leo Burmester as Tom Adler
- Paul Hewitt as Dick Suttle
- Ray McKinnon as Bradley
- Jennifer Griffin as Gladys Perry
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English
- Studios: Malpaso Productions, Warner Bros. Pictures
- Budget: $30,000,000
- Box office: $135,100,000
- Themes: hostage, texas, prison escape, escaped convict, child kidnapping, child driving car, criminologist, 1960s
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