Dirty Harry / A Perfect World

DIRTY HARRY, 1971, Warner Bros., 102 min. Director Don Siegel turns San Francisco, 60s hippie mecca, into an unforgettable 70s war zone of bank robbers and psycho-killers, governed only by the long gun of the law - in the form of magnum-toting Clint Eastwood. A master of minimalism, of packing the fiercest punch into the fewest moves, Siegel transformed the genre film like no other American director. With Andy Robinson.

A PERFECT WORLD, 1993, Warner Bros., 138 min. In 1963, fugitive thief Kevin Costner takes a young boy hostage while being pursued by laconic Texas Ranger Clint Eastwood; before long, the criminal and the boy become surprisingly close friends, but their relationship is destined to end in tragedy. Director Eastwood's follow-up to UNFORGIVEN continues his exploration of the gray area between good & evil and right & wrong; it's also one of his most moving, powerful, and ambivalent examinations of American masculinity and law and order.