“A Perfect World” is a mixed movie if you ask me. At times it feels like a goofy comedy done in the style of the “Dukes of Hazard” television series and “Smokey and the Bandit” but at other points the movie is awfully serious.

In “A Perfect World”, an escaped convict named Robert but nicknamed Butch (Kevin Costner “Dances With Wolves”, “Wyatt Earp”) is forced to kidnap an 8 year old boy named Phillip (T.J. Lowther). While a Texas Ranger named Red played by director and star Clint Eastwood (“Dirty Harry”) tracks him down, Phillip and his kidnapper bond.

The performances are quite good in “A Perfect World”. Costner is a fine actor and here he does a good job as Butch but it’s too bad the script keeps changing tone because he plays goofy and serious equally well. Clint Eastwood has limited screen-time and unlike a lot of his films he never fires a weapon in this picture. Eastwood is good but not great. Costner and Eastwood barely speak a few words to each other. The young boy is pretty good in my opinion. The other characters aren’t that great but none of them really have a lot of screen time.

The movie has a silly sequence involving a robbery and then it has a ton of harsh sequences including two where someone attempts rape (one involves a child). “A Perfect World” has some awkward scenes in it and I’m not sure what it is trying to say. Unlike Eastwood’s previous film “Unforgiven” where the idea was clearly about the effects of killing people, “A Perfect World” has hints of many things such as ‘anybody can be your father figure’, ‘a good person can do bad things’ and ‘you can’t just walk away from a crime’. It’s interesting but I didn’t feel satisfied with the movie.