Johnny Handsome [Blu-ray]

Ok flick

Great Revenge flick

Love this movie 🎬 🥰

I remember seeing this film during it's initial run at a decrepit old movie palace in the Bronx with probably a handful of people in the audience. It's a shame because this unheralded gem deserved better. Before Quentin Tarantino there was Walter Hill as a purveyor of adrenaline charged pulp entertainment. Everything here clicks on all cylinders. Hill masterfully directs this intricately plotted story of a disfigured man given a second chance in life torn between going straight and settling down with a nice girl or returning to crime and getting revenge on his accomplices who set him up. New Orleans is a perfect locale with it's ominous steamy seediness. Mickey Rourke gives probably the performance of his career in capturing the poignance and ultimately the tragedy that is John Sedley. Not to be overlooked is Morgan Freeman as the cop who is tailing Johnny. Our first impulse is to loathe this character but, alas, it is he who truly knows Johnny. Lance Henriksen and Ellen Barkin are positively reptilian in their evil. Also effective are Forest Whitaker and Elizabeth McGovern as Johnny's surgeon and girlfriend who are hopeful that he can reform.

The worst part of this movie is Elizabeth McGovern. Her "southern accent" is laughable. The story follows Mickey Rourk and his criminal career after receiving life-altering surgery to reverse his facial birth defects that made him look like a monster. Ellen Barkin was the most duplicitous, violent woman who I have ever seen in a movie. The story involves a gang of misfits pulling off a multi-million dollar robbery. I saw this movie in the theatre when it first came out. I have no idea why I thought I needed to own it. Mickey Rourk was good.

I saw this movie a long time ago.Now that I saw it again, it's way better then I thought.The story is well built, Mickely Rourke's acting was well done.DVD is stereo but the format is 4:3. which is pretty sad.But my dvd player can do pan& scan so it was ok.The story is a fast going so I was pretty surprised how 1:30:00 flew that fast.Walter Hill is a pretty good director. He made movies like 48 Hours.PS: it's good to see Elizabeth McGovern again. She is in the movie ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA. And this is the second time seeing her again.

I remember seeing this film in the late 80's on videotape and I enjoyed it immensely. Gritty and noirish, the director tells the story of a small time with an unforgettable face and a crime that went wrong almost from the get go. Excellent casting here as Mickey Rourke is Johnny Handsome, the mug with a mug that is painful to look at. You also have Ellen Barkin looking dangerous as well as Lance Henricksen being the baddest boss man in New Orleans. Walter Hill delivers the goods in this story of a double cross that gets reversed. Excuse the sappy ending however this is pulp film making at its finest. They don't make them like this anymore!

This film noir manages to fall short of greatness and yet it should not be overlooked given the performances of most of the major players. Mickey Rourke uses his chiseled features to give us a preview of his stellar 'misunderstood bad-ass' role in Sin City, Forest Whitaker does his hand-wringing missionary doctor thing to perfection, and the great Morgan Freeman shows us a great tightrope act as the super-cynical cop who balances nicely between opportunistic sleaze and tender-hearted simpatico. Ellen Barkin and Lance Hendrickson leave no doubt about their sleaze factor and do so very convincingly. And of course Elizabeth McGovern is perfectly cast as the "discarded sweetheart", though her bayou accent is just a little over the top. Taken on its own Johnny Handsome is maybe nothing more than an okay black movie but the performances of these six taken in the context of their filmographies makes this a 'must have' in the library of any serious film aficionado.

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

Under-rated 80s Rourke flick with fine performances from a good cast. Johhny Handsome is a facially deformed smalltime crook who gets double-crossed on a heist that he planned by two volatile career crims. While in the clink, he is offered the chance of a new face and life by partaking in an experimental surgery programme. With his new boatrace, will he take that chance for a straight life? Or will he use his new unrecognisable mush to trick and destroy the people that set him up? Watch and see! This has the look and feel of an 80s picture which I always like and if, like me, you are a Rourke fan, you should think about checking this one out if you haven't already. Good stuff.

arrived in time,everything was as It should be,so i am satisfied

love it

Exellent blueray crisp picture region a and b confirmed👍