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The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!

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A Perfect World (1993)

Rating: 4 Stars (out of 4)

Ghost Dusters

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy A Perfect World on DVD

Right on the heels of his critical and box-office smash Unforgiven, Clint Eastwood made this outstanding, haunting tale of an escaped convict (Kevin Costner in his greatest performance), and it was completely ignored. The convict kidnaps a little boy wearing a Casper the Friendly Ghost costume on Halloween night and spends the rest of the film trying to evade the law. The two form a strange bond during their trip, which takes place among the wide-open cornfields of the Midwest. Eastwood co-stars in an atypical role as an ineffectual lawman who drives around in a big, clunky, high-tech trailer. Laura Dern plays a criminologist who gets to verbally spar with him. Warner Brothers did a fine job with this beautiful widescreen transfer, although they more or less dumped this film and two other Eastwoods -- Firefox and Heartbreak Ridge -- onto DVD with no fanfare.

Starring: Kevin Costner, Clint Eastwood, Laura Dern, T.J. Lowther, Keith Szarabajka, Leo Burmester, Paul Hewitt, Bradley Whitford, Ray McKinnon, Jennifer Griffin, Leslie Flowers
Written by: John Lee Hancock
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some violence, sexual content and language
Running Time: 138 minutes
Date: January 10, 2003