A PERFECT WORLD (Directed by Clint Eastwood. Starring Kevin Costner, Clint Eastwood, Laura Dern)

Movie executives must have thought it really was a perfect world when Eastwood and Costner agreed to appear together. And they should be a perfect match: two Oscar winning actor-directors who have carefully blended humour, intelligence and sensitivity in with their testosterone appeal. The casting suggests an almost ritualistic celebration of movie status, A Tale Of Two Icons, with Eastwood handing the torch onto Costner after one last shootout, and muttering “Go ahead, take my place,” as Costner rides off into the sunset.

But as we all know, nothing is perfect. The two stars are cast at opposite ends of a pursuit, with Eastwood as cop and Costner as convict, and like the leads in Falling Down and The Fugitive, they only spend a couple of minutes of screen time together. There is something irritatingly deceptive about this. It is like one of Frank Sinatra’s duets, with performances phoned in from around the world. They share equal billing on the marquee, but they might as well be in different movies.

All the male bonding goes on between Costner as William ‘Butch’ Haines and the fatherless 8-year-old boy he takes as a hostage (T.J. Lowther). It is Butch Costner And The Scene-stealing Kid. He’s supposed to be a hardened professional criminal on the run, armed and dangerous, but with a few sideways glances from the kid he reveals himself to be nothing but a big daddy in search of a son. With the boy as his partner in crime, he robs and charms his way around Texas with the law in apparently lukewarm pursuit.

At one point, pinned down by two police patrol cars, he escapes by intimidating the cops, who never once reach for their own firearms. Can we stop for a reality check here? This is Texas, 1963, where shooting first and asking questions later was a matter of cultural pride, as President Kennedy found out to his cost. It’s just Costner’s good luck to stumble into the only town in the state policed by pinko liberals who don’t believe in the use of undue force.

Kennedy gets several name checks, with Eastwood requisitioning a sleek campaign caravan before pulling out of Dallas to head the pursuit, days before the president’s fateful arrival. The point of these references is never made clear, however. Is this meant to be the last week of innocence in America? Is Kennedy another symbolic father figure, whose loss will leave an orphaned nation stumbling in the dark?

The latter seems the most likely solution, since Butch himself is on a quest to find the father he never knew, while becoming father figure to the kid. But these allusions serve only to underline the lack of a really coherent vision. A Perfect World is hardly a state of the nation address, leaning heavily on the poignancy button to point up the all too obvious irony of the title.

As a director, Eastwood rattled everyone’s cage last year with the devastating Unforgiven, but A Perfect World has more in common with his quirky, off-beat takes on macho-Americana, like Bronco Billy and Honky Tonk Man. The direction is assured, with some lovingly crafted set-pieces, but it is slackly paced, and a little meandering. The pursuers seem as relaxed as the pursued, and rarely appear to be closing. They spend most of their screen time discussing criminology and admiring the hi-tech caravan. Ten years ago Eastwood would have amply filled the part of Butch, but he has little to do as the Texas Ranger other than please the crowds with his very presence. You get the impression that his part was expanded just to tempt him in front of the cameras.

Laura Dern, similarly comes over as a sop to demographics, joining the male stars and cute brat to make it a perfect family picture. She plays a criminologist, impeccably dressed for the sixties, but outspoken as only a 90’s feminist could be. She should be getting used to working with dinosaurs, but she is no more effective with Eastwood than she was with the velociraptors. Not even conventionally pretty, Dern is in danger of becoming the thinking man’s window dressing.

Dern confidently informs Eastwood that she is one of the two most intelligent people involved with this case, and lest Eastwood get the idea that this is a compliment, she quickly adds that old Butch is the other. Movies too often make the mistake of telling you someone is clever, while their actions demonstrate otherwise. For all her alleged intelligence Dern adds nothing to the investigation, beyond pseudo-philosophical observations like “it’s not as important to know where he’s going as why he’s going there.” And Butch, despite his apparently awe-inspiring IQ, does a fairly good impression of a chicken without a head, criss-crossing the state with little purpose and concentrating more of his energies on entertaining the child than making good his getaway.

In what could have been his juiciest role Costner oozes lazy charm and sex appeal, but the part requires something more. Beneath the stubble lurks the cleanest-cut hero in moviedom, and one never has the impression that the kid is ever in any real danger. A Perfect World’s subtext is the rot of dysfunctional families but the dark undercurrent pulsing beneath all the charming horseplay is obscured by Costner’s charisma. There is an exception of emotional violence, but instead of building towards it the film appears to suddenly divert down a dramatic alleyway.

Like its stars, A Perfect World is big and handsome. What it needed to push it towards classic status is a little less of Costner’s twinkle and a little more of Eastwood’s wrinkles.