They changed his looks, his life and his future... but they couldn't change his past .
A career criminal who has been deformed since birth is given a new face by a kindly doctor and paroled from prison. It appears that he has gone straight, but he is really planning his revenge on the man who killed his mentor and sent him to prison.
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Character
Grave, classical in form, spare and bleak.
- gravecomic
- classical in formformally daring
- sparerichly built
- warmbleak
- resolvedopen-ended
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“Is Mickey Rourke the best thing in Johnny Handsome?”
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“Is Johnny Handsome better than its reputation?”
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Reviews on TMDB
Written by TMDB members; each links to the original. Not part of Tastebuds's numbers.
- John Chardon TMDB · Mar 20147/10
Walter Hill's undervalued neo-noir. 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
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Cast
- Mickey RourkeJohnny Handsome
- Ellen BarkinSunny Boyd
- Morgan FreemanLt. A.Z. Drones
- Forest WhitakerDr. Steven Fisher
- Elizabeth McGovernDonna McCarty
- Lance HenriksenRafe Garrett
- Scott WilsonMikey Chalmette
- David SchrammVic Dumask
- Peter JasonMr. Bonet
- Yvonne BrycelandSister Luke
Crew
- Walter HillDirector
- Ken FriedmanScreenplay
- Matthew F. LeonettiDirector of Photography
- Ry CooderOriginal Music Composer
- Donn AronEditor
- Carmel DaviesEditor
- Freeman A. DaviesEditor
- Charles RovenProducer
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