Mean Johnny Barrows

This blaxploitation stars Fred Williamson, who also directed it. It's a bit more drama-driven than these films tend to be with Williamson's character being discharged from the army and finding life as a civilian difficult, leading to him getting involved with mobsters. Williamson is a good action star but he is fairly one note actor so he doesn't bring much to the table here with this one. Its actually a bit of a snooze-fest really, with little of it registering at all. It can only really be recommended to the most forgiving blaxploitation fans.

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"?

I can't say that this film was any good. There isn't much to be said about the plot, acting, direction ... anything, really. I like Fred Williamson, but "Mean Johnny Barrows" certainly isn't the high water mark in his resume.

That being said ... the scene with Williamson and Elliott Gould was, I thought, really touching. Not necessarily in the context of the movie itself ... but I couldn't help but notice that probably 95% of that scene was improvised by both Williamson and Gould. As I understand it, both men became friends while filming Robert Altman's "M*A*S*H," and I suspect that Gould probably did the "Professor" role as a favor to his friend Williamson.

The scene is set in the first act of the movie and is relatively short ... I'd say about three or four minutes in length. It doesn't add any sort of perspective to the plot at all. It probably could have been cut from the film altogether, were it not for Elliott Gould's namesake.

Anyhow ... Gould's "Professor" character attempts to educate Williamson's "Barrows" on how a bum ought to live. The two find a clueless man ordering a hot dog and root beer from a street vendor. After a little smooth talking from Gould, he entices the "man with the popsicle shirt" to purchase "a couple dogs with some kraut" for he and Williamson. This scene is totally improvised by both men, leaving the other poor guy in stitches. And in the context of the movie, Williamson's "Barrows" would probably not be laughing it up and saying things like "shall we?" unless he was completely intoxicated or some other way out of his element. I suppose it was refreshing to see these two "old friends" having a good time NOT taking themselves or the scene too seriously.

It's probably pretty silly, but that scene really tickled me. I'm a huge admirer of Elliott Gould's earlier work, but until the moment I saw him on screen, I had no idea he was in this movie. It was a nice surprise. Made this movie a little more palatable. Though I suppose I've seen worse movies by comparison, I doubt that "Mean Johnny Barrows" is a feather in either Fred Williamson's or Elliott Gould's cap.

**SPOILER ALERT** Drummed out of the US Army for slugging his CO Capt. O'Malley, Aaron Banks, Johnny Barrows, Fred Williamson, drifts into town looking for a job ending up instead beaten and robbed by a couple of homeboys as soon as he leaves the bus.

Picked up by the cops thinking that he's a homeless drunk, homeless yes drunk no, Johnny gets worked over again at the jail house until the precinct captain who recognized Johnny as a star high school and collage football player, and decorated Vietnam War Vet, intervenes. At first Johnny is nothing but a shell of his former self going around town looking for a job as well as a free meal. While on skid row Johnny runs into Elliott Gould playing the part of a hobo wise-man who's name, Prof.Theodore Rasputin Waterhouse, is longer then the part that he has in the movie. We see Theodore teach Johnny the fine points of living and surviving on the streets by getting a unsuspecting soul, at a hot-dog stand, to share his frankfurter with him and Johnny.

Johnny had earlier gotten to know Mafiso bigwig Mario Racconi, Stuart Whitman, when he tried to get a free meal of spaghetti and meatballs at his restaurant which Mario overruled his angry chef, Jan J. Madrid, and gave him. Johnny also met Mario's girlfriend Nancy, Jenny Sherman, who took a strange liking to the wandering and homeless vet. It's when Mario offered Johnny a job as a hit-man for his organization he respectfully turned it down having done enough hit's in Nam then he would like to remember.

Still out to make an honest living Johnny ends up cleaning bathrooms and mopping floors at Richard's, R.G Armstrong, gas station but the cheap and ungrateful Richard, after Johnny broke his back working for him, gives Johnny a measly 21 dollars that comes out to something like .70 a day, for the month that he was employed by him. This leads Johnny to lose his cool and Richard to lose a couple of his teeth. Ending up again at the jail-house Johnny is set free with the help of the Racconi mob who got the now scared to death Richard to drop all charges against Johnny.

Mario together with his father Mafia Don Racconi, Luther Adler,had been gunned down by the rival De Vince Mob at a meeting of the minds between the two gang leaders about the trafficking of deadly and illegal drugs on the streets of L.A which Don Racconi was deathly against. With Mario surviving the shoot-out, his father Don Racconi didn't, he gets Johnny to agree to hit the De Vincie mob as a favor to him and Nancy whom Johnny has since fallen in love with.

Knocking off the entire De Vince Mob that included Don De Vince, Anthony Caruso, and his young and schmucky son Tony, Roddy McDowall, Johnny didn't realize that Tony was actually Nancy's man! Tony was planning with Nancy to get his father's and the Racconi Mob to kill each other off and then take take off with Nancy and both mob's assets to Mexico.

During the final stages of warfare with the De Vince mob Johnny come to battle it out again with the former Capt. O'Malley Johnny's old Army CO, who got him canned out of the service, who's now a martial arts hit man for the De Vincie's. O'Malley was no pushover using karate and judo tactics on Johnny but in the end Johnny get's the upper hand by returning a deadly flying star back to O'Malley throat.

The ending of "Mean Johnny Barrows" was a bit confusing not that Johnny was doubled-crossed by Nancy, whom we already knew was two-timing him, but the way Nancy was finished off seemed a bit out of place; stepping on a land mine in lovely and crime-free Malibu?

OK. Just had to put in a comment that those who speak English would fully understand. I don't know about you, but I don't know what "one mean of a dull movie" means. It's a shame when people don't bother to use the language correctly- the other reviewer seems fairly smart in other ways.

This is a dull movie, I grant you. I have it as part of a 4-DVD set called, "Mean Muthas & Bad Brothas." Or maybe it's the other way around. I'm not sure - I bought the set of four movies for 4.98. And it was well worth that. The cheapest I've ever seen of a notoriously cheap genre, this film is slow, barely coherent and full of things that don't make sense. On the other hand,it has Fred Williamson (and was apparently directed by him), Roddy McDowall (playing a Fredo-type, actually a pretty out-of-body performance, it was surprising to realize it was him, although I was looking for him) and Elliot Gould in a very strange but brief "special appearance" as a homeless yet extremely dapper fellow. Hey whatever - it's an incredibly bad blaxploitation film. If that sounds funny to you and you don't spend much money, go for it.