Was he going to kill them (spoiler warning)?
Did Butch intend to kill that family, near the end? Before Phillip shot him in the gut?
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MovieChat Forums > A Perfect World (1993) Discussion > Was he going to kill them (spoiler warni...
I won't be flippant with an answer for you, GIR...Butch was, from what I gathered, maybe abused by a stepfather because he told the kid he'd only killed two people...one who hurt his mama and the con who was fondling Phillip. When he saw the black grandfather slap around the little boy, he lost it. He flipped out and went out of control. I don't really think he intended to kill them, just scare them. I don't think he would have killed Grandma and the little boy. He might have killed the grandfather but who knows. The gunshot wound brought him back to his senses. He saw Phillip as himself as a boy. This is just what I think. I'm sure there will be arguments otherwise.
shareButch is a psychologically damaged individual as a result of his horrible childhood and time in prison. Neither all good nor all bad, his background consists of enough horrors that certain things make him lose control, as you say. The good part of his psyche identified strongly with Phillip, seeing himself in Phillip at that age and therefore protective and fatherly towards him. His prison break partner's perversions and the grandfather's needless brutality caused him to enter that in control/out of control nexus where it was simply impossible for even Butch to know what he was ultimately going to do, up to and including killing the entire family.
Butch himself admits, with a bit of irony, that Phillip is a hero and saved that family. While Butch may not be entirely convinced he was going to kill anybody let alone all of the family, since he said it he acknowledges that he might have killed them.
Honestly, I think Butch would have killed the whole family... But probably mostly out of a morbid sense of mercy... They'd been through a lot of pain, and I think Butch saw nothing but damage in living a childhood/life like that... He wanted badly to take away their pain, so he probably would have killed them all. That's my perspective...
Though in his defense, he did say he'd only killed two people and those were people that hurt the ones he loved, so maybe he wouldn't have. But hey, it's just a movie. :-p
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@GIRobotII I certainly don't think he would've killed Lottie or Cleveland. There's a chance he would've killed Mack, but even then I have my doubts - slapping a kid's pretty bad, but I don't think Butch saw it as justification being killed.
shareHe was only going to kill the grandfather. No way were Lottie or Cleve ever in any danger from Butch.
shareI don't think he meant to kill anyone, just scare them.
If you think he was going to kill any of them you missed the point.
Like the kid realized near the end: "You're not bad...are you Butch?"
I agree. I think his whole point was to see the damage the grandfather was doing to the grandchild. He said at one point “He doesn’t trust you anymore.”
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