Johnny Handsome

We're way m So I read an article where someone was talking about The Wrestler and Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler and how he looks in The Wrestler looking similar to the way he looks in reality, and when that movie came out to the way he looks in this movie with the prosthetics are that's really cruel, right, but you're necessary letting yourself off the hook for insulting mister Mickey Rock and such a No. I don't understand. I don't understand why we have to like constantly make apologies for someone else doing something to themselves and all of us seeing it like it's not anyone's fault. None of us did it, like if for me, I just don't understand why anyone would be like, let me reference a movie from nineteen eighty nine when we're talking about this guy's Oscar worthy performance.

That's more the thing that bugs me because it's like, what is the point of any of this you're saying in critical analysis When people are drawing comparisons to the way he looks now versus the way he used to look, that that's a faupon their part, Like that shouldn't be part of their assessment of the film at hand, I think it's unnecessary, given how low hanging fruit this would kind of see sent of course, And at the same time, I think we can all understand the impulse that nineteen eighties Mickey Rourke was one of the most beautiful human beings to ever walk the planet. And so it feels like a tragedy. We don't need to we don't need to fucking shout about it, right, And and that's the thing. It's like, it's just it's not needed.

And yes, it is kind of ironic that this movie is about a guy with a new face who looked again just the way that they portrayed in this movie. I think we're gonna have a lot to say about But on this episode of the Culture Cast, I am still your host, Chris dash You much to the chagrin of many, and I'm joined by my good friend. He's one of the hosts of Noise Junkies, the host of Dark Destinations, the host of plenty podcasts over on the weirding Way Media Network. You're friend and mine father Malone, Hey, Mama made lemon jam Oh yeah yea. On this episode of the Culture Cast, we're talking about a little film.

If you don't know what we're talking about already by the quotes that Father Malone has already thrown out there, kind of, I guess one of the more well known ones we're talking about a Mickey Rourke film from nineteen eighty nine titled Johnny Handsome. Nobody believed in Johnny Handsome. I know who you are, and I know what John nothing but sheep cruker until a miracle changed his life. I will give you a new faith and a chance and a new life. Now it's time for Johnny to believe in himself.

Why don't you give me a little hint, baby, help me remember who you are? Shot in a bit of line he came. Just throw that away, Johnny Handsome, rated are so. The film is directed by Walter Hill, based on a screenplay by Ken Friedman, based on a book The Three Worlds of Johnny Handsome by John Goadie, and this movie stars Mickey Rourke as the titular Johnny Handsome, a man with a I'm just gonna say di figured face because that's what the movie says, who, after a robbery gone wrong, has reconstructive surgery to turn into Mickey Rourke yes, and Lance Hendrickson is the bad guy and he goes after the crew that that betrayed him. Sort of, that's sort of the movie.

There's a lot of other stuff that's part of this movie. It's a cornucopia of a movie. Yeah, yeah, that's for sure. And you know we're gonna be talking about it on this episode. So Father Malone, I'm gonna kick it to you first.

When did you see this? More than likely you're going to say in the theater. I saw this, and I think it came out in August of nineteen eighty nine, September twenty nine, September twenty I saw this on September twenty nine, nineteen eighty nine. I was sixteen years old. I was a one thousand percent Walter Hill fan The Warriors and forty eight Hours and on and on and uh heuh.

You know, his films had by then kind of stumbled a little bit cotton, a bit too formulaic, bit to Hollywood. If you know, Heat, I mean, Extreme Prejudice was at least an attempted. He's just remaking The Wild Bunch with John Melesis script. But I do love Reddy Heat. I love that movie right as as like a companion piece to Commando.

It's a good movie. As a Walter Hill movie, It's very disappointed. That's fair. Johnny Handsome, on the other hand, is not disappointing. I yeah, I so, I and we I was on your Angel Heart episode and you already well know my my adoration for Mickey Rourke.

So here's Mickey Rourke in a Walter Hill movie. And it's nineteen eighty nine. And what else came out in eighty nine with Walter Hill. I'm waiting for an answer, statue is it? I mean the man who was dead same year, right, same, that's right, same everything right right?

Yeah? Oh my god. This was the Walter Hill sweet spot. This uh, this kind of neon garish, gritty, working class. It's it's all coutar I Couter, who's just like he's another He's just the voice of Walter Hill.

You know Ry Couter's music in particular in this movie. It's fantastic. I mean, we'll get tall this but anyway, so that's when I thought, because I couldn't imagine a better moment in cinema at that moment for me than you know, Mickey work and Walter Hill making a movie together, and Lance hendricks In is in and holy shit, and the cast just keeps getting better and better. See, we're giving short shrift to the fact that, you know, Ellen Barkin is fucking awesome in this movie, and Morgan Freeman is in this movie, and Forest Whittaker is in this movie. It's just it's stacked with like an unbelievable murderer's role of talent.

Nevertheless, I came out feeling underwhelmed and uh, sort of disappointed in a way that I hadn't been with Red Heat because Red Heat was just a bullshit Commander ripoff, and this was very close to classic Walter Hill and I didn't understand what went wrong. That was sixteen year old me. I actually think it's a really good movie. The problems I had when I was a kid I persist, but I've now sort of given into the flow of the movie. I think it's a really good movie.

I just have problems with the third act. Yeah, so I again going back to the Angel Heart episode, I had seen very little Mickey Rourke movies, very little being essentially zero, and so this is on a very long list of movies two watch that have Mickey Rourke in them. That also have a bunch of other people like Lynce Henrickson in it that I am a huge fan of an Ellen Barkin, who's like not in enough things that I've seen. I don't know she's in Buckaroo Bonsi. She's like the manic pixie dream girl of your dreams in that movie.

Here she's better suited for fucking tales. This is like a Tales from Crypt episode. It's like, there's so much of this movie that is just like it feels like the worst things from Tales from the Crypt that we always complained about, just like some of the most set bound ass things I've ever seen. No, I disagree, it's like some of I'm not saying all of it. There are some that really are though, like yeah, oh yeah, look yes, but it's like, but that's what reminds me of Tales from the Crypt, and like the story is also very Tales from the Crypt, like, oh, you know, hello, kiddies, this is a man with the fucked up face I've never I'm whatever, Like I can already see the crypt keeper like going on in songs involved during this revenge scheme like it would for the Crypt.

Right, And so the problem I think I ultimately feel with this movie. And the thing that I have an issue with is not the performances. It's not the actors. It's it's the execution of the idea. And the third act is just third act is it's a real mess.

The mess it's and like I think it's honestly a mess, because the whole movie is a mess. But the first two acts of the movie are entertaining mess is enough that I can overlook how much of a mess they are. But then the third act just goes we kind of don't know what to do here, so a gunfight in a cemetery sort of. Now it's the worst. It's really bad.

It's like James Bond Specter level of just like you have taken a great movie and fucked it in the third act, so bad that it makes me question if this was a good movie to begin with. I don't know who this quote is attributed to, and I'm probably paraphrasing it anyway, but somebody said, no matter how clever your action movie or innovative it might be, it still comes down to two guys punching each other. Right, That's the problem with most action movies. That's I think, you know, had that problem been solved, the we're just standing in a graveyard yelling at each other and kicking the shit out of each other and shooting each other. Had it been a more dynamic ending than I would have I wouldn't have had any qualms and saying, yeah, that's a good movie with a couple of problems.

But because it devolves into the most basic of action or tropes, it sullied the movie in my mind for a lot of years. I've gotten over it. Those first two acts they are a crazy mess, but it is a perfect kind of a mess. It is. This movie jumps genre to genre sort of effortlessly.

It starts off as this crime movie, and then it turns into this prison movie, and then it's this hospital rehabilitation thing, like like an actual medical like nuts and bolts medical drama. We're watching the progress of his surgery. And then it becomes a rehabilitation thing, and then it becomes a new life movie and like it, and then it becomes kind of a romance. Yeah, man, like like and I like this guy, like I like John Sedley, you know, or John Mitchell eventually, so you know it. That's why.

That's why to me, that's why the third act is so frustrating because there's no problem skipping from mess to mess like they've been doing, like but don't go to the if you're going to. It's not like they're innovating each of the genres they're showing us. The innovation is that they're just moving so effortlessly between them. But you need a much better ending than the standard tough guy open the thing or I'll shoot your girl kind of bullshit, you know well, and that I think for me, I'm not sure that the genre jumping works for me as well as it works for you. And I think that's because I'm not super engaged with Mickey Rourke in this really goofy prosthetic and he's just like sitting there and he's doing I haven't seen a thing yet where Mickey Roork's not doing a thing, do you know what I mean?

Mickey Rourke does things, I know, which is the thing that's like, I think that's what makes him Mickey Rourke. And that's the thing that I'm still it's like he's like Nick Cage. He does things almost always he's doing a thing listen. And it took me a long time to get there with Nick Cage is what I'm saying. Nick Cage is just a much more histrionic performer, like for sure, and I think Mickey Rourke is.

I think all of his performances are equally soulful. And they might, you know, beer into some sort of ticks here and there, but like, oh yeah, it's interesting. It's always interesting. I look at them. I say this about everyone.

Your mileage may vary, but like for me, he's aces it. I guess for me, it's always just hard for me to get on board immediately with someone who swings as hard as Mickey Rourke is being asked to swing in this movie. He's pretty subtle begetting though. When he's when he's when he's doing John Handsome, when he's doing pre reconstructive surgery freak. I think that's the best version of the character.

Yeah, I agree, because it's all soul. Yeah, and like when he's just Mickey, I think, honestly, when he's just Mickey Rourke in this movie is when the movie just kind of starts to slowly fall apart through no fault of Mickey ark no, no, no, no no. I just think the movie doesn't know what to do with what it's doing No, it doesn't have you read the book. No, See, John Gotti happened to write a novel that was adapted into one of my top five favorite films of all time, which is The Taking a Pellem one, two three, Right, So I had seen that so rushed out and got the book as soon as I had freaked out over the movie, and and and saw, you know, next to it the Three Worlds of john and you Handsome, and hey, that's that movie, so grab that as well.

The book is it's out of it's broken into three acts like like this, so you get the three different portions of Johnny's life, right, But it starts with the third act. So it starts with this handsome stranger in veiguling his way into the lives of these criminals, got a score. And then the second act we get the story of Johnny Handsome, who was this deformed guy who uh, you know, goes to prison and right, and that'll and then you know, back and back and back to the to the end. But interestingly, Sonny's character is virtually nothing in the book. She's there, but she she has virtually no role to play.

Instead, the race character is split into two other characters who I'm not sure. One I believe is named Tunny, but I'll never forget the other one. It's a jappy oh no. Yeah, so uh, those two characters got combined into both Rafe and Sonny honestly, so that was an interesting change. I you know, Oh my god, I'll tell you, man, the sunny character, the Ellen Barking character is.

She's great in this obviously. Yeah. I just it is a shame I haven't seen her in enough things because she has a really strange energy, is all I can say. Like, you know what I mean? Yeah, man, Yeah, an incredibly strange energy, otherworldly almost energy to her.

Walter Hill apparently told her because she wanted the part, and he said, you know, your career is going pretty well. I don't think you want to be doing this movie. And she was like, fuck you, I'm doing the movie. So uh, you know, clearly she was meant to play the part. So Lance Henrickson in this movie kind of wasted, don't you think.

Yeah, that's that's kind of you. You beat me to it. That's what I was going to ask you. It's like he's really I wouldn't say blink and you miss him. But it's just under it's I don't want to say Lance Henrickson has an uvra in the eighties for playing this kind of role.

But this the Brian Bosworth movie. I'm sure we could go back and forth and name a couple more. This is this is character is a carbon copy of a copy of Jesse Hooker from Near Dark Right. Yeah, I was waiting for you to say that one, because that's the one that I like. That's the the one that all of those other ones were just ripped off of, like including the the Brian Bosworth movie where he's just playing another dude with a leather jacket, Like, okay, doesn't isn't there a helicopter and a motorcycle flying into a helicopter at the end of that movie?

I think, so thinks it I. You know, I like Lance Henrickson a lot. It's just action star Lance Henrickson, like about what about Hard Target? Never seen it? He's good in that, him and his him and his number one hunting pal Arnold Vassliu.

Oh my god, Okay, I would watch that in the Heartbeat Henrickson hunting veterans through the swamps like they should have been the heroes of that movie. I see there was the problem. They should have made Van Damme the villain, like they were doing a whole thing in Hunt Him Down? Is that the movie where he has like the ringlets. Yes, you'll understand when you see the movie.

My god, that's you know. That's the other thing. Like what I can't figure out is what because this movie is so genre all over the place, I can't figure out what movie the genre is trying to be, or what genre this movie's trying to be. I guess is what I mean? This movie is a noir?

Is it it is? Actually? It is one? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess. I just I guess.

The face thing is the is the real noir thing? Right? Like al he's got a new face? Like okay, melodrama, Like Walter Hill complained about this movie short of endlessly. Two things I don't like.

I love Walter Hill. But the two things I don't like about Walter Hill. One is every interview he gave about this movie at the time, he kept saying how he had turned it down like four times, just like bragging about that, like okay, great, why did you do it the fourth time? Yeah? Man?

And what he said in the interview was. He turned it down because he didn't think audiences would buy into the face surgery thing. He because it was melodrama. That's how he described it. And he said, and over the years I came to the idea that all movies are melodrama, So like, why not embrace it?

Oh? How how how deep? Yeah? I guess so that that's the one thing. And then you know, obviously it's trying to trying to take mister O'Bannon's name off of that alien script wasn't a cool movie either, there, Walter Well, that's the other thing that always like trips me up about Walter Hill.

It's just I always feel like the things that I've seen of his it's like, oh, there's that other good thing that he did, and it's like it's it was like for me, it was like I saw forty eight Hours and the Warriors, but like all the other things that I've seen are just okay. Well, and again, like I know how much you like Walter Hill. It's just like this. I enjoyed this, but I don't think I would go out of my way to watch this movie again because of the melodrama stuff. For me, was just not not really something I like the melodrama part of the movie with there was like the medical stuff with Forrest White character, Like most of the stuff with Forest Whittaker's character for me was just I was not I was really not interested in that aspect of That aspect of the movie just didn't engage me the way the rest of the movie did.

That's too bad. I like that part of the movie a lot, But you can totally understand why it doesn't, right, Like, yeah, I mean, look, if you're not if you're not digging the genre jumping that this movie is he's later down, then yeah, you're not gonna like that. This is suddenly a series of Suddenly it's goodwill hunting. You know. I was like this psychiatrist in his patient, right, I got to admit when he tells the story about how all the kids were laughing at him that Johnny don't need no mask on Halloween and he says, so, what did you do beat the shit out of him?

You can write that down. That's great right now, And that's enjoyed that scene. Yeah, No, that I enjoyed that scene. No. And but again, like I just think for me, the issue with the movie is they went to hard like this movie's an hour and a half.

They went a little too much with the stuff in the hospital, and I felt like it kind of slowed the movie down for me, almost to a crawl. And like, I get that it's supposed to be this big character building moment with Mickey Rourick's character, but just again, like I felt like I just wasn't. I don't know, maybe I just wasn't as engaged in that moment as I should have been, but it just felt like the movie just it kind of failed in the part of the story where it's supposed to humanize him. It's like, I don't I don't think I necessarily needed to feel him be humanized. Like I think the movie had already done a good enough job that it didn't have to keep doing it.

I was more interested in the things he was going to get himself into when he was with it with the new Mickey Rourke face. Does that make sense, Yeah, it does. Gathering my thoughts, I think that what you're describing as it's slowing the movie down, just like I feel like the major problems in the movie would have been resolved had the last scene been good. I think in your case, had they had a top to tail good third act, it would have made those sequences not feel so slow, it would have felt more earned. Because to me, the ultimate problem with this movie is Walter Hill's take on that novel is a tiger can't change his stripes.

Right. You are who you are. You aren't made, You are who you are. You are defined by your actions, not by your past. Walter'll that's kind of an across the board machismo sort of leaning Walter Hill kind of a kind of an attitude, and I don't one outcome here for your story like right, and and because he sort of approaches it with that level of fatalism, you can't ever really engage with Johnny because the choices are no longer his.

The problem for me with the movie is that there is not a moment where Johnny agonizes over one life versus another, Right, That's what I mean, Like they humanize him, but then they don't like they do enough early on for me to be like I can understand the journey he's going to go on. And then they humanize him in this hospital scene, but it really doesn't pay off because we don't get to learn who he ends up being as this new person because they've sacrificed so much time to frontload it. But those things end up not mattering in the second part because the second part is just it's such a different like the half second half of the second act and all the third act feel like a completely different idea altogether.

Yeah, it feels like a self fulfilling prophecy in a way, and that Walter Hill didn't trust that middle portion of the movie and so he wanted to keep it running quickly and he wanted it actually and he wanted it, you know, thrilling, and so it ends up kind of delivering that. It makes that middle portion seem less important than it actually is. It's the heart of the movie, but it doesn't deliver the payoff for that storyline. This group of people who are all behind him and trying to give him this new line, Like he engages with them almost till the end, but not really. We don't feel their impact on him when he finally makes the decision, I don't care about this life.

I just want these people dead, right, And that to me is a missed opportunity because what the fuck like like I don't know, like there's a that weird Walter Hill macheesemos shit. Just it gets in the way here, It gets in the way of telling a compelling, full story for him. It does. It's weird because I mean, look, this is ultimately just a Walter not just a Walter. This is ultimately a Walter Hill film.

And what makes a lot of this movie great is Walter Hill. Right. The stuff that I think works in the screenplay, He's got his hand on it, even though Ken Friedman wrote the script, but it's still based on the Gotti novel. By the way, Gotti novel set in New Jersey. I like Mickey Rourke in New Orleans too, See, That's what I'm saying.

Like that works because Walter Hill said I'll do it, but I'll do it in New Orleans because that's what would look like nowadays, right right, right is New Orleans, and Mickey Rourke works in New Orleans for whatever reason. You know what, you know what. The thing I really liked in the movie is some characters have the accent, some do not. Yeah, and that feels real and lived in Elizabeth Bookgovern's doing an awesome New Orleans accent, and Mickey Rourke has a touch of it, but a touch of it behind all of the impediments that he's working against. Right, how did so how did you feel?

How did you feel? Because you haven't said to me how you feel about the prosthetics. I think they're pretty good. They should have been better. I think they're filmed in full lighting a lot for how okay they are.

Yeah, and that is jeez, who do we blame there? Matthew Leonetti. I can't really blame him. He's a fucking awesome director of photography. I'm going to blame Michael Westmore the makeup designer, because I know Rob would have been in Matthew Leonetti's ear saying you can't the light is too It's gonna look fake if you're shooting at that bright.

Michael Westmoorde, Yes, the forehead Ridge's own, Michael Faceoff's own. Michael Westmoorn, Yeah, yeah, it's it's I have not seen mask, but this is one of those kinds of makeups. Yeah, exactly. And in that one, that character is walking around in full sunlight and it's fine. Yeah, that was years before this movie.

It was this is nineteen eighty nine. Yeah. Walter Hill is working at simultaneously on a television show that is producing excellent prosthetics. Yeah, that fun. Yeah, I look, I'm not beating up on this makeup job.

I think it but it's not. But I don't think it's good. It could be better. But ultimately I'm looking at the guy underneath that. I'm looking you know, well, that's I mean.

The thing is Mickey Rourke is so good in this movie, acts through that makeup and and and overcomes the that makeup's limitations, not specifically physically, although he's doing that, but just the lackluster portion of that makeup. Yeah. No, you're You're totally right. He makes the makeup work, I mean more than it ever should have worked, especially in like broad daylight in the hospital scenes, like he's full on just sitting there with a cigarette dragging out of his mouth under fluorescent light, like they're they're not trying to hide anything. Yeah.

So again, not not spectacular, but not not a not a tragedy, no, no, I mean yeah, yeah, you can't get Eric Stolt's level, but yeah, I mean again, it's not. Yeah, it's not the worst that I've seen, I will say, you know, speaking of things that are kind of unfortunate shortcomings of the movie, Morgan Freeman kind of wasted, kind of wasted. Yeah, you know, I like Forest Whittaker kind of wasted too, like Lance Henrickson kind of wasted. Like but look, okay Lance Henrickson, Yes, unquestionably, Yeah, but he's great. Like, you know, if you're gonna have a nothing role, you might as well fill it with Lance Hendrickson.

Is just going to bring Lance hendricks into the party. Yeah, but it's Lance Henrickson. I know. So you feel bad, but I don't feel bad because I just like seeing him as like another another paint on this particular painting, like you know, another hue on the canvas, like looking very lanky too in this movie, like very long and limber, yeah, sinewy, right, yeah, yeah, he looks like he should be wielding a broad axe. Yeah, he definitely doesn't look like the version of him that we're going to see in like two or three years and Tales from the Crypt No, and yeah, exactly when he's cutting cards, cutting cards, he's looking pretty skeletal in that episode.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I agree with you. I think Morgan Freeman is a bit wasted, but just you know, like I said about the other like, Morgan Freeman's like great you know, he's I believe that guy, like and I believe his obsession and like I hate that goddamn character. He's like Javert and they miss a rob you know. I was just you're gonna fuck up. I'm here to tell you you're gonna fuck up, right, And then then he comes back like I loved when Forrest Whittaker confronts him, like would you fucking lay off him?

Like give him a chance, you prag well, And then it's a self fulfilling prophecy. And that's again that's Walter Hill stamp on it because in the book, that character is just a crooked cop who's like maybe on the make, you know, like maybe he's wanting money, like maybe it isn't so interested in justice, And instead we get the voice of law and morality and like predestination in the force in the form of Morgan Freeman here like a Grecian chorus. Yeah, like and then insta just never shutting the fuck up, Like it's kind of a waste because they don't give him anything to do that's exciting. It's just the same thing in every scene. And see and that there in lies the problem, right.

He keeps saying here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna get a new face, You're gonna suck everything up, You're gonna go after him, and you're gonna kill them. And that's exactly what happens and the frost. The really frustrating thing about that is Morgan Freeman shows up right before it all goes down and lets him go do it right right? Why didn't he just go with him?

Like? Why did? This is where the third act could have been. I mean, maybe this is more formula and more of the melodrama that Walderhill thinks he's working against here, But like, how about they hatched some plan, you know, like how about why not a payroll job and we're gonna be coming out of the payroll company. You might want to arrest these thieves.

I thought that's where the movie was going. Nope, it's just gonna be guys punching and stabbing and shooting in a graveyard that looks like it's on the tails from the crypt set. Yeah. That the graveyart didn't look great. It did look like a set.

Unfortunately, it looked like I see what I mean. Some of the worst parts of this movie look like the worst parts of Tales from the Crypt and that is that whole cemetery, Like that cemetery scene, I swear to god, Billy fucking Zane is off in the fucking corner somewhere getting ready to film Demon Night. Like that's that's I again, like all jokes aside, like the third act of this movie, like it really works against everything good that the movie is doing. Yeah, which is unfortunate because there's to me, there's so much good going on. Oh yeah, if you worked seeing himself for the first time when he takes the bandages off, good god, man, I love it.

Yeah. And you know we haven't mentioned Scott Wilson, who shows up for like, you know, five minutes. Effectively he's pretty good too, Yeah, like younger and like vital and you know, he's the prick who starts this whole thing. He sucks everything up for everybody. Mike and I like the choice of doing the opening in black and white as well.

Yeah, again, like sort of a tip of the hat to the noir thing, like like we saw an Angel Hart, you know, like that basically begins in black and white, that's shot at night and it's all cold colors, you know, same thing. And I do really I do really like the way Mickey work looks in the opening, and I feel like like that's the thing, Like the makeup looks really good when it's just just done black and white, Like it looks so good because you can't tell the seams or anything. Maybe we should rewatch the movie with the color disaturated. I wonder what it would look like in those scenes, like if it would look better. Now, very curious because it does really look good in those opening scenes, Like it was really convincing, like in a way like it's meant to be kind of hard to look at, like intentionally, and it in those opening scenes it does that.

The rest of the movie is just kind of like I'm staring at a guy in a mask. Well not the rest of the movie only only have right whatever like the next you know when whenever it's outside of that and it's just him in broad daylight, it's just like WHOA, I don't know, Like you have to have a really solid appliance if you're going to do broad daylight filming, otherwise you look like Jeff Goldbloom in the Fly when he starts falling apart. That's what he reminded me of in those daylight shots. It's just like it doesn't look pleasant. And I know that it's not meant to be pleasant, but it doesn't look real.

It just looks like a guy in makeup. It does a bit look like yes, yeah, how about the idea that the two authority figures in this movie are black. I appreciated that. Walter Hill. It's kind of funny to me, Like people talk about obviously there has forever been a representation problem in Hollywood, but it always seemed a little less in action movies and horror movies.

Yeah, that's true, right, Like John carp always, Walter Hill was always George George Romero. Yeah, just reinforce it here. Like watching watching uh, Forrest Whittaker and Morgan Freeman square off first scene was like a good reminder that these are the actual people in charge in this world. Well, and I like when they have the real world budding into the story, like when he goes to the prison and he gets stabbed out in the yard, like yeah, and it keeps intercutting between the judge sending him to Angola and the jail scenes. Like Walter Hill, I mean, obviously he brings a lot to this movie in terms of shaping the narrative.

But he also brings a lot to this movie in terms of just like his style. Oh yeah, like their whole sequences like set to Ryan Couter's music, which is, you know, a pretty great in this movie, and just montages of like men doing manly things, you know, like I'm grinding this girder whatever, you know, like they're in the shipyards and they're sparks flying everywhere. He makes all that stuff look great. It looks grimy and gritty and awful and yet beautiful. Or the first person shot of walking down the jail cells and seeing kind of the close ups of people's faces, like it's he does it.

Walter Hill gets a lot of mileage out of the things that he brings to the film, just as the director that he is. The opening robbery sequence is masterfully done man and switching up these styles, like he keeps going to these weird fish eye lenses and like extreme close ups of faces and stuff. It's all very disorienting. Meanwhile, like all the editing in that scene is fantastic. Freeman Davies has always been.

I know there are a couple of collaborators on this one, but Freeman Davies has always been Walter Hill's editor, and he's never better than he is here man, Uh shot to shot like it's it's it's a great sequence and features Oh my god, I don't know his name, but the third member of the gang. There's Sunny and Rafe and then there's the actual good guys, which is Mikey and Uh and Johnny and the driver. Oh yeah, the Bob Ross looking guy. Yeah, they're what over the joy? That guy if you've ever seen the Doors, he's he's the comp who comes on stage and takes the joint out of Jim Morrison's mouth.

He's he's a stunt man. He's a stunt driver. And Walter Hill throws him in a lot of in a lot of acting roles, so fantastic and and just like a stunt man. I hate to pick on him, but he he oversells the motion of exploding that car when he lifts up the control stick to like to blow it up, and he's like like jams his hand down like you needed hitting a button. He's really excited, man to blow that car up.

Not necessary, man, I just pushed a little butt flip the toggle. Oh man, I I actually I wish again. I wish there'd been more of the opening scenes, like there had been more robberies, and it hadn't been just they do the one job with them and then they turn on them. It'd been like one or two, like I can't you know, like ways that they could have. I mean, they took they took the book and just made it chronological.

But there was something nice about the character having his face already changed, showing up and like becoming and then you find out that being part of it. Yeah, and then and then the medical thing begins and it's like whoa. Okay, that to me almost makes more sense. Might have might have helped some of this film's problem, just more of like like a mystery thriller kind of a thing at the beginning. Yeah, because there's not a whole lot of mystery as to who he is.

Not for us. No, he's the he's the guy that we've seen from the start of the movie. Okay, I hate I look, I love this movie. I will watch it again. I enjoy it.

Butt in the third see the third act, it really is just a shambles because Johnnie finally makes the decision Okay, I'm going to go through with the plan I'm going to get revenge for Mikey right, and decides to not love Elizabeth McGovern, who's not great in this movie. It's not given anything to do. But that's why she's not great. No, it's not her fault. I'm not blaming Elizabeth McGovern.

He's not great in this movie, sir. Yeah, she is not great because they didn't give her anything good to do. Hey, her character is not good, But Elizabeth governs McGovern is really good in this movie. Really, I'll fight you. Wow, Okay, I will fight you on that.

She's man. I agree with you that her character is a bit of a nothing character. She's just there to give the character a complication. Before he barrels towards the predestined fate of being in cemetery. But his plan for getting in with these people is to just sort of show up at the bar and go, hey, Sonny, I know you.

You know me, I got a job. Let's go do it. And then they they're like, I don't know who this guy is. And then he blazed the plan out and they're like, okay, yeah, sure, let's do it. He tells them I know them, I know you because I was a jail mate of jail cell mate with Johnny Handsome, and then Sonny asks the question We're all thinking, well, why would you want to trust us?

Then? And he has really no answer for that. Oh, I just don't know anybody else in town. First of all, said town of New Orleans. First of all, sir, you have a New Orleans accent.

Second of all, that means you know somebody. Second of all, why would they go along with this? He might be a cop. I was gonna say, boy, that guy sounds like Johnny Handsome, though he still kind of sounds like him. Oh, you would never expect you the guy you got at the beginning of this movie.

You give it like a year or two. That see, that's is the passage of time like really conveyed in this film. You got to figure those surgeries, that's like a year, right, at least at least your two years. But I don't know. Like this again like Walter Hill's world of magical realism, like are we holding this movie to reality or we just like playing?

Like are we playing like a noir movie where I got a new face, cut that one off and put this one on. Like yeah, like a dark passage, right, right, So I'm like that, yeah, where it's just like he's got a new face. Like I don't know, Like the movie kind of like oscillates so much, I can't tell what the fuck it even wants to do about it. That is true, and that is actually part of the charm. I contend.

I feel like it would have been a little bit more successful for me if it had just picked one of those tones and gone with one of those tones, as opposed to going with seemingly all of them all at once, or maybe not all at once, but in a way where you know, again, it's just it's just a lot. It's just a lot, you know what I mean, Like it's just a lot. It's just a lot all at once. Here's what I think. I think you gotta stop cooking the books.

Anna. That was really good. But the neck out for you a good kid, you know, I mean, that's the thing. Like Mickey Rourke is so good. It does make me want to overlook how fucking dumb some of this movie devolves into.

There are some bone headed moments, it's just it devolves into some stuff that the movie, it's the movie shouldn't have been making these decisions because it didn't need to go there. No, it's unfortunate. The movie is really really smart at the beginning, yeah, and really compelling, And I liked that we were getting into this argument of can he change like right, of course, massive disadvantage, Like let's give him a whole new start. We you know, we get to see him enjoy it, but not really like even from the beginning, Like I don't know ultimately, I know, I already said it. What the movie for me is we don't get further into his struggle of whether or not this new life is worth jettisoning.

Right, And if you like Elizabeth McGovern's character as much as you clearly do, and you probably would agree that that life that he would choose with her is better than the one that he chooses in the end, it just feels like a complete ding dong move too. It's like, I don't understand how you could even make this decision in good conscience, dude, Like you were given the keys to the kingdom and you want to just go and be a complete fucking revenge monkey again Like yeah, Like I don't want to say it could be solved with one character just saying that to him, but maybe it could have, Like, it feels like it could have, doesn't it. It's just dodging it. It's you know again, it just feels like Walter Hill looking give a shit about that struggle.

In Walter Hill's mind, there is no struggle, and that, for me is a problem because in my mind, that's the more compelling part of the story. Like he said, he wanted to call this movie the tragedy of Johnny Hanson tragedy and in those Greek tragedies there, look, there ain't no escaping what's coming for you, right, But you know, you know, I don't know. I mean, maybe I don't like that aspect of this story because I don't feel like the story needs that kind of that specific kind of thing is not needed here, right. But is that maybe just our outlook clashes with mister Hills and so we can't accept it. Or is it that a character puts a gun in a suitcase filled with money and his plan is that this guy is going to ask him to open it because he's going to assume that the bag has been booby drapped instead of just cutting the fucking bag open to get at the money with the giant knife in his hand.

Yeah, I don't get it. I don't. I don't understand what his end game was in in this, like at all, to die, Like, I don't think he cared if he lived or died. I think his plan was to kill them both and then take that money and then leave. Look, I just don't want to see you no more, Chris, all right, Yeah, it's just so fun.

God, I just don't get it. Like I said, it just it falls apart so hard that I just I've got to understand the way the book ends is what kind of the same God an opportunity to change it, and he didn't even change it. It's a little bit more of a struggle for him internally, which is what I think is the missing ingredient. Is there a version of this where he doesn't do that? I would like to see that explored, same like I would like to see the struggle explored.

It's not really explored. I know everyone says this about every property these days, but like it's a book, you could make a twelve eight episode series out of this and really get into it and really explore those themes, because this isn't that movie. And I love the Walter Hill action movie that we got but I think there's still something very profound to be mined from the themes that are actually running through this. I would agree, I just I wish that I honestly, it just feels like the movie's not interested in talking about that. And that's the problem.

Yeah, it's Walter Hill is interested in talking about that. He's interested in a guy disguising himself and getting revenge. It's like, and this isn't even that good of a story if that's what you're going for. It's not that great of a revenge flick, you know what I mean? Oh, it's not really.

It's really that it's the story that Mickey Rourke is telling without giving any scenes to do it. That is what it honestly fucking feels like. It's like this movie. The fact that this movie is an hour and a half long is the most surprising part. Yeah, it is a little bit shocking.

I assumed it was two because it covers so much ground, but knowing that you could have tacked another like not even look a half an hour. You've given me fifteen minutes of stuff between Johnny and the Girl, or Johnny and the Nun, or Johnny and the Doctor, Johnny and the copy event. Hew, let's have a real conversation you and me. Why can't I change? Why won't you let me alone?

Of just saying like because you're a bad guy and I know bad, You're bad? Bye? Yeah, I don't like that, it makes the character of Johnny seemed like an idiot. That's the problem. It's like, all of a sudden, this guy is a moron, right, Like it's a lot of bone headed plays at the end.

Yeah, yeah, and it unfortunately colors the guy who was playing the heist because his friend needed him at the beginning, right. And that's the thing. It's like, what happened to you in between the opening and the clothes of this movie, other than the fact that you've got a new face, because like, all of a sudden, you act like a moron, Like you've got yourself into a position where you could even get revenge on these people, which takes a lot of know how and thought to put yourself into that position. And yeah, you kind of did fall into the lap of a doctor who helped your face. But by the end of the movie, the character motivations feel so bizarre that it's just like, what was even the point of watching this guy's journey if he's not invested in staying alive, like because I never got the sense that he wanted to die along with these people.

Yeah it right, don't Yeah, I don't know. This isn't like the Wild Bunch. This isn't like The Last Stand, you know, and like we might as well go down, you know, right, And that's what I mean, Like I would expect that from something like that, where that is what's going on, where it is one of those kinds of things where it's like this guy has a fucking death wish whatever. Alternately, but then what's the point of giving this guy a new face? Then?

Like honestly, the whole point of giving the guy the new face ends up being what so he can enact revenge port right, Like understand that's the problem with this movie. It feels like it doesn't even know what it's been given, and so it's just kind of maybe, well, maybe he should have turned it down a fifth time? Yeah, is there is there a good version of this? You think it's just not this? Okay?

Once again, I like this movie, I know, but you know, but you know what I mean, Like they're a great movie lurking in here that is waiting to come out, Like, I don't think they filmed that movie, so I don't think it's like you can cut it together from a little footage or anything. I think there, I think that great movie is there and can be made like I think it. I think it rises above melodrama if you let it, if you just are thinking, well, it won't ever be beyond that, so I'll just stuff it in between these action sequences. Then you got Johnny Anson and there aren't even good action scenes. Like that's the problems, not even an action movie.

The last sequence is a travesty. It's okay, I mean it's it's well directed and everything, but like it's not exciting. But I think the earlier action sequences are great, Like I think that the first robbery is fantastic. I think the second robbery's done really well. But there's too few and far between, right, because this isn't meant to be a big action or it's meant to be a psychological study.

And I just don't understand why a direct movie, yeah for real, Like I just don't understand why why it appealed to Walter Hill. Well, maybe Redheat didn't do so well that tough guy cinema with Walter Hill, Like, Okay, I don't know. Like, if you want to watch a tough guy revenge movie, they've got to be better ones than this one. You see Geronimo, See this movie, Geronimo, good movie. I'm surprised you haven't programmed to Walter Hill month for September one of these years.

IM two. I do love him, so we would have watched this already probably, well expect it sometime. I want to ask you, though, because I don't think we've ever talked about it, how do you feel about Walter Hill and the whole alien thing? Well, I mentioned it earlier. It's the second thing I don't like about him.

But it's like a hard thing to overlook, right, It's a really hard thing to overlook because I think he made actual, really good contributions to that screenplay. I don't think that Dan O'Bannon wouldn't have gotten there because I think it's pretty well established script he wrote was meant for a low budget situation, and once thar Beast Baby, once the funding and everything was set, then the obviously Dan O'Bannon was going to rewrite that script like it's Dan O'Bannon he's gonna go to town, but maybe he wouldn't have gone into Space Truckers. And I think Walter Hill did bring Space Truckers to the table, so his contribution can be overestimated. But trying to fucking hand a script off with your name on it and the original author's gone is a fucking bullshit move.

I don't care who you are. Well, and I'll tell you what in those Alien documentaries, Walter Hill isn't on them, but David Geyler is, and Guyler always strikes me as the real slippery turd of the bunch, So on Hill, am I am I painting painting them both with the same brush. But you know what they deserve it if they like you know, they're a team, those two, at least for those Alien movies, they were right right, And yeah, them and Gordon Carroll, so so you know, fuck them all for that particular experience. Yeah, well, and especially I mean again, like it happens all the time, but obviously with Alien. Yeah, and I don't think there was any world in where he was gonna not put Dano Vanna's name on the fucking movie.

But still bullshit out. Yeah, And that's the thing about Walter Hill. That is kind of hard to not stomach. But look at him and then look at the things that he's done. It's like, man, that really is like that sucks.

Like, yeah, the Warriors, it's true, it's true. Warriors is a classic. And he did Streets of Fire man, I love Streets of Fire. And he did Red Heat, which I actually I am not not as opposed to extreme prejudice sin that one. No, I'm not.

I'm sorry. Nick Nolte neo Western movie. A. Yeah, it's it's basically it's The Wild Bunch rewritten by like up to like modernized by John Millius, like I think he wrote it in seventy five or something like that, and it was just sitting around. Did you see Trespass?

Walter Hills movie Trespass? Is that the Bill Sadler movie? No, you should watch that movie. We should watch that movie. Yeah, we're gonna have to do with Walter Hill mon because that's written by Zamakison.

Gale's got Bill Paxton too, right, Paxton, Bill Sadler, ice cube, ice tea. It's the bills versus the ices. That's bizarre. Oh you know what, I like it. I think it's cuckoo and uh, I don't know.

I think it's fun. It's it's it's the same level of fatalism of this movie, but appropriate because everyone there is a fucking scumbag. It deserves to go down. That's fair. I guess that's the question about Johnny Handsome.

Does Johnny Handsome ultimately get what he deserves if that's the path to get it, then yeah. If if nothing, if there was nothing more important than making sure that Raife and Sonny had a bullet in them, than yeah, bravo. It does seem to me like he could have done that shit at any time. Yeah, I mean they were in the car at one point, like pretty unassuming he could have just bammed absolutely. How about in the fucking garage when they when they were rendezvousing and he thought Sonny was part of his plan.

By the way, that scene, he and Sonny there's a switcheroo where they convinced Raife that they've put the suitcase into his car, but they've kept the suitcase and then they get into a car and drive away, and then the next thing we see is Sunny arriving in a cab. What happened there? Yeah, I was like what, Yeah, I have no fucking clue, man. Like I said, this movie just all of a sudden in the third acts, just like we're going to complicate things, but we're not actually gonna like attempt to give a shit about doing it. Yeah, I mean, look, ultimately, the character putting a gun on top of the money and going this will be fine is just like he knew he was going to get to a point where he was gonna have to do that.

He's gonna get the shit kicked. Like what, There's no nobility to it. No, it's just him getting It's just him acting like a ding dong right Like, and they try and stack the deck a little there because they have the girls, so he's got to like do it to save the girl, right, But no, he already made the decision. He already told her to fuck off. Like she's just a complication now, right, No nobility in anything he does here.

He's just a kuel crazy madman. Well, and that's and the sad thing is is not that's not the character Mickey Rourke is portraying at all. No, there's a soul in there that we didn't get to see whither away. We just got to see a guy just do what exactly what the fucking nay saying doom say of the movie, Morgan Freeman has been growing about the whole movie. It's it's and like that's the thing ultimately about this movie.

It's like the things and the places that the movie goes could have been interesting, should have been interesting, and it honestly feels like the movie forgot to make them interesting. It certainly didn't care. At the end. It was like we're gonna do what we're doing, and then yeah, here we go. Yeah and like yeah, Lance Hendrickson and just yikes, yeah, man, a copy of a copy of a copy is probably a nice way of putting it.

Yeah. And the really sad thing is like they they instead of just sidelining him as the sidekick to Sonny, which he clearly is in the movie. I mean, unfortunately, just make Ellen Barkin the fucking lead character there and Rafe be her sidekick and that could have been really interesting, Like give us a little bit of that, like a wrong female villain in the late eighties early nineties in a movie with this cast, Like come on, why not? It is what they gave us. It's just that that clearly wasn't their intention.

It's just that Ellen Barkin overwhelmed everything, right, It's not like Sigourney Weaver an alien, where it's like that was the intention. Guys, It's just like this is just what happened because you have Ellen Barkin in your movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, yeah, it's man. Yeah, just I honestly, I'm always bummed out by movies that are missed opportunities more than anything else. Like they always bummed me out so much more than just a bad movie.

Oh, I hear you, But I still recommend this movie. I get it. I get it. I mean, look, it's an hour and a half, so at least there's that. I mean, it is an hour and a half, so it is you can watch it and be done and it's not a three hour slog.

Oh, this movie isn't a waste of time. This movie is a good movie with missed opportunities to become a great movie. Yeah. If anything, it's just wasting the time of the actors because they could have been given something more interesting to do. Correct.

Nevertheless, all good to watch. It's all the performances here are fucking startlingly as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, and setting it in New Orleans. I think it's smart. They get a lot of mileage out of the city being you know, I don't know.

I mean, you just have New Orleans. There's just something about New Orleans that you just don't have to pay for it. You just get it for free by being there. Yeah. And evidently so that bar it was a set right, so they purchased this corner building and turned it into a bar right right when they were leaving production, when they were wrapping up, a guy bought it as is and just opened it as a bar.

It's amazing. Yeah, would you like to have a drink there? Kind? Yeah, I've been trying to track it down. I can't find anything.

But I read that story. I was like, well, that's cool that Johnny handsome bar. I just like to think that Lance Hendrickson is they're attempting poorly to open a briefcase with a knife. Yeah, well that's a daily mind for mister hendricks and apparent that's one of my favorite scenes in the entire movies, him just flicking at the thing on the suitcase with his name, mak you ineffectual moron with the tip of a blade. Yeah, yeah, God working Yeah, anything else you want to talk about, So Father Malone.

Final thoughts on Johnny Handsome. It's a troubled film, nevertheless a worthy one. Uh. This is this is pretty much what could be considered for a while the last really good Mickey Rourk movie. Wow, that's right.

Yeah, Uh, as I said, I think it's a I think it's a good movie. I like the source material a tremendous amount. I love all the performances in here at once again Mickey Rourke like nineteen eighties Mickey Rourk, I love you know what I love Mickey Rourk Now I loved him in the nineties two. I love all of his iterations. But this young beautiful man here in this movie, like that's this is the last we're gonna see of him.

And and it's a Walter Hill movie. And it's a Walter Hill movie, which if you escw the problems of not resolving our lead character stuff, it's really it's a fun film. Like it doesn't it's worth your time. Yeah, let's just say that this is this is a worth your time just for the soundtrack. Man, we didn't even really get into ry Cooter and his genius.

But like it is a it's a good sounding movie. It's a great looking movie. Watch Johnny Handsome. I will, I mean, yeah, I'll agree with most of what you've said, you know, like you like you kind of mentioned there's a lot of really positive things here. Mickey Rourke again just showing why anytime he gets brought up, people go always kind of like Brando.

It's like, yeah, I mean I get it, Like he has this weird gravitas and energy that most actors don't have anymore, and he tried to beat it out of himself and it's still there. It's still there. I mean, it's just you're not getting the roles to him anymore that they could be benefiting his abilities. He's just not getting those roles anymore because of any number of things, including, but not limited to the things that he did, the movies that he made. And also again how fickle the fucking industry is with people.

You know, there's no saying that five years from now there won't be some Mickey Rourke renaissance, because holy shit, I would have told you five years ago, Brendan Fraser has An Oscar Oh would have told you you're fucking nuts. So not because Brendan Frasier is not a good actor. But because the industry doesn't reward the people that deserve it, it often rewards the people that feel privileged enough to say that they deserve it. So Mickey Rourke has almost got an Academy Award from the same director. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, so man Aronovski fucking a man. Every actor out there, if Darren Aronovsky calls you say yes, yeah, for fucking real like that. You know, as much as I maybe have my own qualms with Aronovsky, like if you're going to work with him on a project where it's like a character study, bro, like even I'll be like, hell, yeah, you better do it, because there's there's there is nobody better for that application in terms of like a character study of a deeply flawed character. So so yeah, no, I I'm excited to see. You know.

We we kind of programmed a little bit more Mickey Rourke stuff for the rest of the month. Bob Dylan, Poet Laureate, Voice of a Generation loves Harley Davidson and the Marble Roman. I got that, man. I liked that movie. You imagine him talking about it like I want to be in that conversation.

Yeah, I really like Mickey. Really, that's a terrible Bob Dylan. That's like, it's like a street corner Bob Dylan. I'm begging for pennies in Vegas. Dylan, that you'd ride in the bag and then all those scenes it looked, really, it looks really good.

A cowboy had a kind of good. What gauge head do you think that was? Is that Cave Blanchett as Bob Dylan. Thank you for recognizing it. You're welcome.

Oddly cific, I know, but oh Man, Speaking of music, Father Malone, where can people find you when you're not here joining me talking about movies. You can catch me co hosting Noise Junkies. It's a music podcast over on Weirdingwaymedia dot com, where you can also find Midnight Viewing the Night Gallery podcast. That's a podcast I host with mister Stashu here and our friend in Detroit, mister Mike White. Weirding Way Media.

Everybody go there the end and demo. Yeah. Weirdingwaymedia dot Com is the podcast network for people who like good things, good things being things worth listening to, like night Mister Walter's Noise Junkies, The Projection Booth, ranking on Bass. New projects upcoming that I can't talk about yet, but those are places that you can find them. Weirdingwaymedia dot com.

As for this show, culturecast dot com, Patreon dot com, ten, twenty and fifty. Those are the levels you can get in at. But like, rate and review the show where wherever you get it more than likely iTunes. Yay, engagement folks, do it please, it helps. I promise.

It's the least you can do for the least amount of money, or the most you can do for the least amount of money. However the fuck you want to view and just do it. Just a great review and like the showers, smash that like button as they as they're as they're saying, well guys, god Man caw in the morning, Father Blon, thank you so much for joining me. This was fun, my pleasure. Or any chance I get to talk about Mickey Roark, I'm always going to engage.

Let's do it again soon and talk about Harley Davidson at the Marble are Man. Yeah, we'll catch you on the next episode. Amer