Johnny Belle Gueule

Johnny Handsome is directed by Walter Hill and adapted to screenplay by Ken Friedman from the novel "The Three Worlds of Johnny Handsome" written by John Godey. It stars Mickey Rourke, Ellen Barkin, Elizabeth McGovern, Lance Henriksen, Forest Whitaker, Morgan Freeman and Scott Wilson. Music is by Ry Cooder and cinematography by Matthew F. Leonetti.

John Sedley (Rourke), AKA: Johnny Handsome, has a severely disfigured face, when he and his only real friend are double-crossed by two accomplices during a robbery, Johnny is sent to prison and his life reaches a new low. However, hope springs in the form of Dr. Steven Fisher (Whitaker), a pioneering plastic surgeon who offers to give Johnny surgery that would give him a normal face as he attempts to integrate back into society. With a new face making him unrecognisable, there is scope to enact revenge on the two people who killed his best friend and had him put in prison...

Walter Hill knows his film noir, anyone who has seen The Driver knows this. Here for Johnny Handsome, Hill takes a lot of the fantastical elements of noir and dresses it up admirably as a violent revenge thriller. A box office flop and something of a kicking post for big hitting critics of the late 1980s, it's a film that now can be seen as being very much in tune with its influences.

The charges of it being too bonkers, too violent and too much of a "B" movie homage just don't add up, because what is on offer is good solid meaty neo-noir cinema. A protagonist with an affliction, medical shenanigans, hyper femme fatale, over the top villain and a stoic and sarcastic gumshoe type copper. All of which operate in a sweaty and luridly coloured New Orleans. Add in Hill's eye for aggressive action sequences and it's neo a go-go.

Hill gets strong performances from his cast, ensuring emotional bonds are not over egged and a clamour for sympathy and understanding kept to a bearable level by the actors playing the "good" guys "n" dolls. While giving Henriksen and Barkin licence to sizzle with sinister glee is astute and perfectly in tune with the material on the page. Leonetti's photography has the requisite pulpy noirishness to it, and the familiar twangs of Ry Cooder are never a bad thing in a Walter Hill movie.

It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but those complaining about missed opportunities regarding rehabilitation - or that the liberal doctor turns out to be clinically wrong in his reform beliefs - really are missing the point or unaware of the world where something like Johnny Handsome lives. From the kinetic misery at film's start, to the "ever so in tune with film noir" finale, Johnny Handsome is well worth a look by anyone interested in noir's updated version. 7/10

Well renowned action director Walter Hill tackles a more moody, character driven crime drama in the shape of "Johnny Handsome" and it would have to be one of his under-the-radar productions. The story follows that of a deformed criminal John who stages a heist, however there's a double-cross which sees his best friend killed and him going to prison. There he is asked to take part in a rehabilitation program, where they clear him of his deformity while also getting him parole. Hoping now that he can start a new life, however John is still burning inside for vengeance.

Presenting an ideal cast, Hill really does cast a spell over his audience with solid (even if it does feel a bit underdone) story-telling backed up by credibly good performances from leading man Mickey Rourke (within the peak of his career) and equally so support by Morgan Freeman, Ellen Barkin Lance Henrikson, Elizabeth McGovern and Forest Whitaker. Everybody chips in, adding their own stamp to proceedings and establishing gripping character rapports or confrontations (e.g. between Freeman's detective and Whitaker's doctor).

Hill's cruise-like direction is crisp and tidy, engineering some intense passages and some well-oiled, edgy action set-pieces, although they are low-key (still violent) but this really does belong to its cast and the interestingly, smart story (that was adapted off John Godey's novel "The Three Worlds of Johnny Handsome"). The ambitious plot does have a lot going on and it might not all come together, but how it does play out stays constantly interesting and rather unpleasant in its details. Rourke's character Johnny is given a chance to start over and go straight, from this physical change brings much needed confidence but the hunger inside for revenge can't simply be cured or forgotten. Someone he cared for, who saw beyond his deformity deserved payback. Johnny would deliver it. So he carefully plans out the revenge, wanting to tease before actually ending it and things get even more suspenseful when the situation starts to go off the rails. Lance Henrikson and Ellen Barkin really do nail down their explosively sly parts of the two crooks who betrayed Johnny. The ever-reliable, Hill regular Ry Cooder adds a smoking touch to the music score.

One of those films I didn't know all that much of, but came away pleasantly surprised.

When I watched the movie Johnny Handsome, over again. I saw it from a whole new perspective. Other commentators that I've read here, looked at the movie only as to, character development, and ongoing plot continuity. They never looked at the movie as a human interest story! A glimpse into a possible life, lived in just the way it was presented! The story of a such a person, who may have actually lived, and who may have had the experiences that the character of John had, deformed as he was, and so may have had to re-acted in exactly the way he did? It's all the figment of some writer's imagination, but stretch your own mind enough to envelope this concept of this one man's life yourself? Saying Mickey Rourke cannot act, is a very short-sighted, and erroneous statement to make, after exploring the complexities of this character's existence overall. Mickey Rourke had the depth, and the finely tuned sensitivity, to convey the hopelessness of spirit, and also the continual confusion, of a totally scarred and horribly deformed, and therefore ugly and repulsive, singular human entity. John started out being socially unassertive,bereft of other contemporaries, visibly embarrassed, and yet, at the same time, pseudo-aggressive, and drawn to the criminal element. Understandably so, due to his low self-esteem, which is a by-product of his off-putting facial deformities. Mickey wore that face as if he truly had been born with it in reality. John's motivation, (for getting revenge on the two miscreants that had plotted against him, and his friend, in the robbery, and then killed his friend and wounded him), was the fact that, although he was hideous to the world at large, that one man had treated him as a person, a confidant, (due in part to John's unique skills), and befriended him, not as a horribly deformed freak, but as a peer, albeit, a peer in criminal activities. Even though, after his operation, John became a, "new man", just like everybody else, acceptable to the general population. This to the point of even attracting a "normal" caring woman to his new self. That wasn't enough to have changed his already well developed, "antisocial, unreasonable, and skewered" psyche. That part of him that would always be "unacceptable", in a so called "normal" world. So when the chance to avenge his only "true" friend, one who had included John (in his former incarnation), into his own bleak life routinely, how could John, with his scarred sensibilities, turn from the possibility of making a re-payment, he felt he "owed" this to Mikey? That alone would have driven John, at any cost, to figure out a way, in which ever way he could, to destroy the two characters, played so viciously and perfectly, by the actors Hendrikson, and Barkin. He fought their fire with his fire. Really this was the only way John knew, and the only option that was opened to him. A new face wouldn't have changed that. How could a person watching this movie expect rationality? I didn't comment on the Freeman character, Drones, because he just did what you would expect a cop to do. See a criminal, and try to find him doing something wrong. Then take him in. Freeman did this very accurately.He did his job, as usual. Still, the old adage applies here, with Mickey's character, John: Walk a mile in another's shoes before you judge him. I feel so sorry for people who watch movies with their mind, and leave their heart, and humanity completely out of it. They miss so much.

Mickey Rourke gives an astonishing performance as John Sedley a deformed thug who gets a chance at a normal life when a kind Doctor (Forrest Whitaker) asks to do plastic surgery on Sedley. Sedley accepts and is torn between going straight or getting revenge on the two(Lance Henriksen and Ellen Barkin) that killed his friend Mikey (Scott Wilson)in this compelling yet slightly long drama. Some very exciting actionscenes and a good ear for dialog make Johnny Handsome stand out from other revenge flicks in the genre.

"Johnny Handsome" is a flawed but fascinating work from Walter Hill. Mickey Rourke is great as a deformed criminal who returns to avenge the people (Ellen Barkin and Lance Henriksen) who wronged him. The conceit of the premise is that Johnny's enemies will not see him coming with his new face, a face rebuilt after his ugly one was cut to pieces. Unfortunately, this potentially rich premise is quickly discarded and the film becomes a more standard crime yarn with a pointless love story thrown in. Johnny's love interest, Elizabeth McGovern, who was great in a similar role in "Racing With The Moon", is wasted and just doesn't belong in this material.

Lance Henriksen and Ellen Barkin are great as two of the oiliest lowlifes to impact with a movie screen in years. Barkin's pronunciation of the word "geek", when referring to Rourke's character, is hilarious, as is the crime couple's incessant badgering of each other. If the film had focused more on this duo and less on McGovern and another subplot involving Forest Whitaker, who is saddled with a dreadfully written role as a doctor who tries to help Johnny, it would have been a true contender.

The opening robbery scene is classic Hill -- brutal and economical -- and sets high expectations for the mayhem to come. Ry Cooder's slide guitar score is mesmerizing, and Mathew F. Leonetti's cinematography is moody and beguiling.

Ultimately, the film is a gritty pulp crime novel compromised by studio concessions. Which is such a crying shame.