Mean Johnny Barrows

I got this film as part of this budget "Bad Brothas, Mean Mothas" boxed set, and watched this one first, because it stars Fred "Super-stud" Willaimson. I was surprised at what different and ambitous movie this is. Whether it lives up to all that ambition...

Rather than a typical revenge fantasy (nothing wrong with those, but...) this film follows Johnny B. as he tries to get a job and resist joining the mob after being dishonorably discharged from the army for striking a white officer (after being, to put it lightly, provoked).

It takes a while as the film unfolds to realize that he's not, as usually happens in these movies, going to get p***ed and get even. He is arrested and tormented by the police to which he won't even give his name or say anything. For a while I thought he was dazed by being beaten earlier, but by the time he gets to the police station he should be more coherent. Then I thought "Well, he's just so COOL that he won't even dignify those cops by talking to them," but then that falls apart as well and... I just don't know why he wouldn't talk. Because it's a plot point, I suspect.

The main idea of the story is Johnny trying to get a real job, and resist the mobsters who are offering him big money to become a hit man.

(SPOILERS AHEAD----->)The arc of the movie hinges on Johnny's love for a woman (a WHITE woman, no less), which we are supposed to understand leads to him finally agreeing to work for the mob in order to avenge her rape. Sadly, this entire aspect of the film just doesn't come off at all, as there is barely any connection between him and the woman, there is no discernible chemistry between them... there's just nothing.

(more spoilers here:) Another interesting thing about the structure of the film is how Johnny ends up the head of this crime organization at the end. It's just kind of interesting and unexpected. Then he offers his love to the woman, and instead of saying "Yes Johnny, take me anywhere and make love to me all day and all night! Do it right here! Do it right now!" like any sane woman or man would do, she... has a different reaction. And this leads to another surprising thing: the ending, which I totally didn't expect, but won't give away.

This movie being directed by Fred himself adds a dimension to all the adoring shots of himself glaring face-on into the camera, but hey, he looks great and he knows it. I also like the change when he finally gets into those slick suits. The cheap DVD I got REALLY suffers from not being widescreen, as Fred seems to like to place his characters on opposite ends of the screen, and it seemed like more than half of the movie featured half a person's face or shuttled back and forth between the ends of the screen.

A lot of people posting here have talked about how slow this movie is... I think because they're expecting a traditional revenge tale. This movie is not the greatest, but I think it deserves to be admired for the unconventionality of the story, and the aspects of 70s black culture (namely trying to get a decent job without any credentials, the difficulty of avoiding drawn into crime, in addition to the hammered in "plight of the veteran" aspects) that you don't see covered in other movies, which I think makes it kind of a little gem.

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I found this flick on a three movie DVD compilation of Fred Williamson films for around three or four bucks. I discovered it at the supermarket of all places and what a return on that initial four dollar investment (If you strung together the randomly occurring "good bits" from all three shows you'd have one cool, effectively kick-ass movie-- it wouldn't make any sense of course but it'd be chock full of good bits!).

I love Fred Williamson-- he's like the funky love-child of John Cassavetes and Jim Brown. There may be rambling and fumbled story lines and plot focus, the quality of the production may waver and shift with the tenuous availability of funds, always some friends-doing-a-favor-casting, bizarre and clunky setups, obtuse angles and ham-fisted camera work, self-indulgent faux-introspective montage, and lots of technical sloppiness and cheap shortcuts are all evident throughout his oeuvre. But the fervent passion and pure love for cinema all seem to somehow leak through like tepid, runny kindergarten paste holding everything together by some incredulous force of will. Fred's shrewd and clever will.

Fred may not be easily filed in the same category with directors of such influence and artistic gravitas as Lang, Welles, or Kurosawa, but they probably wouldn't mind hanging out with him over a couple of drinks and some girls.

Mean Johnny Barrows is not a good movie. But it is fun, goofy, dumb, sleazy, cheap, silly and thrilling. For the right pair of eyes that delight in the subtle contextual appreciations of Blaxploitation, Crime/Mob Pictures, or just choice 1970's trashy film-making it is an inimitable masterpiece.

The casting is priceless. Luther Adler is perfect as a post-Godfather era cardboard cut-out patriarch with the additional ludicrous premise of having Roddy McDowall play his own son. McDowall's hairstyle alone is enough to justify purchasing this movie, with the appearance of a melting dollop of brown Cool Whip. He frets and blanches and swallows as a Fredoesque nervous Nellie, uncomfortable with his familial role as oldest son and next-in-line Family Boss.

The astounding Stuart Whitman plays a rival Mob Boss who owns an Italian Restaurant and spends most of the time interfering in the kitchen. His hair also invokes an instinctual fight-or-flight response like Mary-Tyler Moore at an Alice Cooper concert. He has a strange tendency to instantaneously change entire outfits without warning in a singular scene. He also keeps one arm stiffly bent at chest level at all times for no discernible reason whatsoever and in most scenes appears to have been sleeping in his wardrobe, woken up only seconds before filming any of his takes.

R.G. Armstong is undeniably electrifying as the filling station owner who reluctantly gives the jobless and homeless Mean Johnny Barrows employment for no other reason than he needs someone to clean his bathrooms.

And Elliot Gould makes his legendary "Special Appearance" as the worlds most colorful and erudite hobo in motion picture history.

There's lots of music and walking sequences, bad suits, nasty cops, bigotry, ambition, and eating out of garbage cans. There's romance and violence and lots of giant 70's cars pulling in and out of driveways, all inevitably leading up to fisticuffs and gratuitous gun play, of course.

I would say if you have four bucks in change floating around inside your couch or car or even in the pockets of an old coat in storage somewhere and you have developed an appreciation for this enjoyable genre, trade in those rolls of pennies and pick it up! 'Cause at the end of the day, it's all about Fred.

I just want to say that this is a lot better than the last film I watched with Fred Williamson (Adios Amigo). But Mean Johnny Barrows is a crime film that has an interesting story, but is poorly executed across the big screen due to lousy direction from star Fred Williamson. In this snoozefest he is kicked out of the army for striking an officer. He then has a streak of bad luck starting with a beat down by the police. Then our hero is a hobo, homeless in extreme poverty. He then moves on up by scrubbing toilets in a gas station before taking a job as mob hitman. What else happens is hazy in memory due to struggling to stay awake in this poorly put together snoozefest. As a Fred Williamson fan, Mean Johnny Barrows is a let down and a bummer. Even though some of his films are of shoddy quality, Fred Williamson is a really cool and bad ass dude. His finer qualities don't save this stinker and I would advise interested parties to skip this one.

Mean Johnny Barrows is one mean a dull of a film.

Basically it tells the story of Johnny Barrows, a former soldier who gets booted out of the army for striking an officer.

As he returns to his hometown, he gets mugged and robbed and therefore, he is left penniless.

Determined to start his life up again, he goes around looking for a job. There, he works at a garage and meets up with this chick called Nancy.

However, prior to his job, he gets recruited by Mario Racconi when he gets gunned down by the Da Vinci family following a truce that went wrong.

Determined to take on the job, Johnny goes round bumping off each member of the Da Vinci family until he reaches a climatic end putting a full scale on them with a double-barrelled shot gun.

Well afterwards, what happens..? Someone puts a contract out on him. But who..?

Well, it comes to show with a classic film like this, there are some good moments as well as bad. A good cast though, even Fred Williamson directed this flick.

Not bad, but after all it is one mean of a dull film!

A dishonorably discharged Vietnam vet soon finds himself homeless and unemployed on the streets of Los Angeles. He gets a job offer from a mobster to wipe out another mob family. Not a thought-provoking premise, but one that could have delivered some action and excitement. But the movie is anything but action-packed and exciting. Our hero doesn't take the mob boss' job offer until more than an hour of the running time has passed! And when he does start delivering business, it's not very compelling - it's as if director Williamson was determined to make all this "action" as slow and boring as the first hour of the movie. The movie looks okay for what was a poverty-row budget, and Williamson in front of the camera has some charisma, but that's nowhere enough to save the movie. And why does the title card of the movie claim the hero is named "Johnny Barrows" when a badge the hero wears in the beginning of the movie states he's named "Johnnie Barrows"?