The defence The Big-Idea Head
“Form is the argument.”
Every composed frame and deliberate cut is evidence that control can be thrilling in its own right.
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A Perfect World
Drama · Crime · Thriller · 1993
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.
Movie details
A Perfect World
“A convict. A cop. A hostage that will make one of them a hero.”
1993 Drama · Crime · Thriller 2h 18m
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
7.5 / 10
Community rating
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.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over A Perfect World?
For the defence
The Big-Idea Head
“You watch with your brain, not your gut.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Popcorn Loyalist
“Big screen, big feelings, no apologies.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
The Night of the Hunter
Crime · 1955
In Depression-era West Virginia, a serial-killing preacher hunts two young children who know the whereabouts of a stash of money.
Brute Force
Crime · 1947
Timeworn Joe Collins and his fellow inmates live under the heavy thumb of the sadistic, power-tripping guard Captain Munsey. Only Collins' dreams of escape keep him going, but how can he possibly bust out of Munsey's chains?
White Heat
Crime · 1949
A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and then leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll heist. After the heist, events take a crazy turn.
John Q
Drama · 2002
John Quincy Archibald is a father and husband whose son is diagnosed with an enlarged heart and then finds out he cannot receive a transplant because HMO insurance will not cover it. Therefore, he decides to take a hospital full of patients hostage until the hospital puts his son's name on the donor's list.
The Parts You Lose
Drama · 2019
An unlikely friendship unfolds between a young deaf boy, Wesley, and a fugitive criminal who takes refuge in an abandoned barn on the family’s rural North Dakota farm.
The Defiant Ones
Crime · 1958
Two convicts—one white, one black—escape while chained to each other.
Richard Jewell
Drama · 2019
Richard Jewell thinks quick, works fast, and saves hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives after a domestic terrorist plants several pipe bombs and they explode during a concert, only to be falsely suspected of the crime by sloppy FBI work and sensational media coverage.
Mad City
Thriller · 1997
A misguided museum guard who loses his job and then tries to get it back at gunpoint is thrown into the fierce world of ratings-driven TV gone mad.
The Sugarland Express
Crime · 1974
Married small-time crooks Lou-Jean and Clovis Poplin lose their baby to the state of Texas and resolve to do whatever it takes to get him back. Lou-Jean gets Clovis out of jail, and the two steal their son from his foster home, in addition to taking a highway patrolman hostage. As a massive dragnet starts to pursue them across Texas, the couple become unlikely folk heroes and even start to bond with the captive policeman.
The Narrow Margin
Thriller · 1952
A tough cop meets his match when he has to guard a gangster's widow on a train journey from Chicago to Los Angeles.
Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Clint Eastwood
Written by
John Lee Hancock
Kevin Costner
Robert 'Butch' Haynes
Clint Eastwood
Chief Red Garnett
Laura Dern
Sally Gerber
T.J. Lowther
Phillip 'Buzz' Perry
Bradley Whitford
Bobby Lee
Keith Szarabajka
Terry Pugh
Leo Burmester
Tom Adler
Court is in session
Put A Perfect World on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist
“Technique in search of a pulse.”
Immaculate construction is still construction. The film may be too busy proving its craft to feel alive.