Johnny Handsome

Quite by accident, I stumbled across a movie that had completely gone under my radar:

Johnny Handsome (1989).

Johnny (Mickey Rourke) is a career criminal whose face has been severely deformed since birth. His best friend is hard up for money and begs Johnny to plan a heist, something he's really good at. Two others are brought in for the job, Rafe (Lance Henriksen) and Sunny (Ellen Barkin). The job goes wrong and Johnny ends up in prison. There he is put in a program that gives him plastic surgery as a way to rehabilitate him. Police Lieutenant Drones (Morgan Freeman) does not believe Johnny has turned over a new leaf, and the question is, has he?

On paper, Johnny Handsome should be a slam dunk. Apart from the actors I listed above, we also get Forest Whitaker, Elizabeth McGovern and quite a few other faces I've seen before, but there is a fundamental flaw I can't put my finger on. Don't get me wrong, Johnny Handsome is not a bad movie at all, but it is lacking something. Once I was done with it, I went to IMDB like always and saw that Al Pacino was originally slated to play Johnny but despite several rewrites he dropped out feeling that the script would never be able to rise above B-movie status, and he was right. There is of course nothing wrong with B-movies, but unless you set out to make one, something has gone wrong.

The story is pretty good, the actors are by themselves excellent and the cinematography is decent. The dialogue isn't exactly inspired, but this isn't the kind of movie that should have Tarantino style memorable one liners. It's more somber and serious than that.

As I'm writing this, I think the major problem sits in Johnny Handsome himself. We spend quite a lot of time in the prison hospital, yet we don't really know much about him as a person besides his deformed face (excellent make up work btw). His struggle between going straight and dating McGovern, or going back to his old life becomes too shallow. I do think the story is good, but the movies doesn't have enough time to really explore it. I would have liked to see more of Rafe, but he is a shallow and pretty baseline villain who seems to be allergic to sleeves. Sunny is more interesting, and Barkin said she loved that character because she got to be as bad as she wanted without some lame excuse why this poor girl turned out wrong. She's bad and she loves it.

Initially I was disappointed with Johnny Handsome, but it did stay with me. One part of my dissatisfaction is my own fault. It takes place in New Orleans and was made two years after Angel Heart which is one of my all time favorite movies. I subconsciously expected Johnny Handsome to be a bit more like Angel Heart which is dumb. They have nothing in common except location and Mickey Rourke. With that realization I had to rethink it and so I'm writing this.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes, but you need to be realistic with what it is. Johnny Handsome is a solid movie about choice and consequence. It sadly isn't as good as it could have been, but that is neither here no there. It is the movie it is, and you can certainly do much worse than watching Johnny Handsome.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!