Kevin Costner gives a complex and shaded performance as Butch Haynes, an escaped con on the run in "A Perfect World" — yet he is never quite able to get a handle on the character's mix of lifelong criminal ruthlessness and deep-seated goodness.

But that's probably more the fault of director Clint Eastwood, who stumbles a bit here after his triumphant, Oscar-winning direction of "Unforgiven," followed by his knockout "In the Line of Fire" performance.

"A Perfect World" is essentially an indictment of how the American penal system turns troubled boys into career crooks, but the film is weakened by a plethora of inappropriate comedy, much of which feels like a director's choice.

The picture opens with an artsy shot of Butch seemingly resting on a field of grass, a smile on his face and a Casper the Friendly Ghost Halloween mask nearby. Overhead we hear the faint rhythms of a slow-motion helicopter blade. Then, at the film's conclusion, we see that everything is not what it appears to be.

As the narrative kicks in, we discover it is 1963, the day after Halloween, as Butch and another con, Terry Pugh (Keith Szarabajka), make an early morning escape from prison. They head for a nearby suburb where they plan to steal a car, but Terry is such a slimeball that he can't resist breaking into a home to assault a mother who is starting breakfast for her children.

Butch follows and rescues her, but when a neighbor calls police, they take one of her children as a hostage, young Phillip (played by Salt Laker T.J. Lowther, who is also in "A Home of Our Own").

What follows is a formula idea — the hardened criminal softened by his hostage. But the story's twist is that Butch has never had a chance, coming from a criminal family and being incarcerated at a young age. In young Phillip, whose mother is a devout Jehovah's Witness, Butch sees a bit of himself, since Phillip has never been allowed to enjoy what most of us take for granted as the small pleasures of childhood.

Working from a script by playwright John Lee Hancock, Eastwood has attempted to lighten up the material by filling it with an uncomfortable abundance of comedy, some of it so broad that it belongs in some other movie.

Costner is pretty good, though one can't help but wonder what this might have been like in the hands of a more rounded actor, or in another era, perhaps James Cagney. Eastwood, doing his standard stoic, I-don't-take-no-guff-from-nobody lawman on his heels, is also good. But Laura Dern is woefully underused as a criminal psychologist.

The film's real shining star is young Lowther, whose performance is as real and rooted as any youngster's this year — no small compliment when you consider the wide array of excellent child performances we saw in 1993. This little guy is an actor to watch for.

"A Perfect World" is rated PG-13 — but it's not for children — with considerable violence and profanity, some vulgar language and a sex scene.