There are some films that seem to get swallowed up by the sheer number of movies released around them. Johnny Handsome, Walter Hill’s 1989 crime drama starring Mickey Rourke, is one of those films at least it was for me. I had seen the film back in the VHS rental days but Id not seen the film for over 30 years.
For anyone unfamiliar with Johnny Handsome and that might sound surprising. Mickey Rourke was one of the biggest stars of the late 1980s, appearing in films such as Francis Ford Coppola’s Rumble Fish, erotic thriller 9½ Weeks, and the Robert DeNiro devil movie Angel Heart. Yet, somewhere along the way, Johnny Handsome seems to have slipped through the cracks and isn’t talked about as much as I think it deserves to be. Thankfully, StudioCanal’s latest addition to its Cult Classics range gives us an excellent opportunity to rediscover it (or discover it if you hadn’t heard of it before)
It is easy to forget just how big Mickey Rourke was during this 80s period. Today, conversations about Mickey often focus on his boxing career and the changes to his appearance, but in the late 1980s he was very much a major Hollywood star. Johnny Handsome arrived during that period, the same year as Wild Orchid, and sees Mickey Rourke working with director Walter Hill, the filmmaker behind such memorable titles as Streets of Fire and Southern Comfort and of course The Warriors.
But lets get back to Johnny Handsome. an unusual mixture of crime thriller, drama and character drama. Mickey Rourke plays Johnny Handsome, a criminal who has lived with a severe facial disfigurement since birth and whose circumstances have contributed to a life of crime. After undergoing reconstructive surgery, Johnny is given the opportunity to start again with a new appearance. The question is whether he can escape the life he left behind
It is an intriguing premise, and one that apparently caused quite a few actors to turn the project down. Much of the role required Mickey to work under extensive prosthetic makeup, something that understandably presented a challenge for any actor which is why many turned down the chance to star in the film. The result is a film that has considerably more humanity than you might initially expect from on the surface a crime thriller.
It isn’t quite as serious as something like David Lynch’s The Elephant Man, but there are obvious parallels in the way appearance, identity and society’s treatment of people who look different are explored. At its heart, however, Johnny Handsome remains a crime thriller. For me, revisiting Johnny Handsome was particularly enjoyable because I hadn’t watched it since my video store days. I originally rented the film for around £2 and watched it on a tiny 14-inch portable colour television. There was no surround sound, no 4K restoration and certainly none of the presentation we have available today.
Despite all that, I remember really enjoying the film and coming back to it roughly 35 years later, I was pleased to discover that the film still works. I’d forgotten considerably more of the story than I expected. Having watched countless films since the early 1990s, I remembered the basic premise but very little of the detail. That actually made this new viewing particularly rewarding. It felt almost like discovering the film again.
Studiocanal’s Cult Classics range has become an increasingly attractive proposition for physical media collectors, and Johnny Handsome is another great addition. The picture quality looks great, with the restoration providing a huge improvement over the sort of presentation I would have experienced when renting the film from a video store back in the last century
The soundtrack also benefits enormously from the upgrade. Ry Cooder’s score is one of the highlights of the film and sounds fantastic here. Ry Cooder was a frequent collaborator with Walter Hill, and his music fits the atmosphere of *Johnny Handsome perfectly and might actually be my favourite score of those two collaborating.
The 4K release comes in a slim case with a slipcover. I wasn’t initially convinced by these thinner cases when I first encountered them, but I’ve gradually come around to them. They take up less shelf space, which is always welcome for anyone building a sizeable physical media collection.
The artwork across the Cult Classics range has become one of its major selling points, and Johnny Handsome is another excellent example. A shout out to artist Tom Hodge, also known as The Dude Designs There is also a 12-page booklet included, featuring a substantial amount of written material rather than simply a few photographs and a short paragraph.
Where this release really impresses, however, is with its special features. There are four full-length audio commentaries included. The only slight disappointment is that none of the commentaries feature members of the original cast or crew. Personally, I tend to prefer commentaries featuring the people who actually made the film because they can provide those behind the scenes insights that simply aren’t available anywhere else. That said, I’d much rather have four additional commentaries than none at all.
The commentaries include
Audio commentary by filmmaker Edgar Pablos with film historians Nathaniel Thompson and Howard S. Berger
Audio commentary by film critics Alain Silver and James Ursini
Audio commentary with film critic/author Walter Chaw
Audio commentary with film historians Daniel Kremer and Scout Tafoya
Collectively, these provide around six hours of additional material.
That’s an enormous amount of chat track commentary for a 94 minute film and gives fans plenty of opportunity to dig much deeper into Johnny Handsome.
But we aren’t finished there when it comes to extra features on the disc, there is also Codes to Live, a documentary focusing on Walter Hill which runs for 43 minutes and is a great chat with Walter Hill about the production and release of the film. It is fascinating stuff. Walter Hill is very honest about the making of the movie, including the casting, production, post production and alternate endings It also provides some interesting information about Mickey Rourke’s concerns regarding the prosthetic makeup. There are plenty of stories throughout, and the featurette manages to hold your attention despite being relatively straight forward in its presentation.For anyone interested in Walter Hill as a filmmaker, this is essential viewing.
There’s also a 15 minute interview with Elizabeth McGovern, followed by Wordsmith, an interview with writer Ken Friedman looking at the writing of the film, theres Eye of the Beholder which focuses on the makeup effects and features makeup artist Michael Westmore, whose name will be familiar to anyone who paid attention to genre movie credits during the 1980s and 1990s. Finally, we get featurette Action Man features an interview with stuntman Alan Graf. All together, the featurettes provide around an hour and a half of additional material. When combined with the four commentaries and the film itself, you’re looking at roughly nine hours of material. That’s an impressive amount of content for a single release.
While Johnny Handsome may not be regarded as one of Walter Hill’s most famous films, Johnny Handsome remains an excellent crime thriller with an unusual central character . Mickey Rourke is excellent, particularly given the physical demands of the role, while the supporting cast which includes Ellen Barkin, Forest Whittaker, and an early appearance by Morgan Freeman gives the film plenty of energy. For me, Lance Henriksen is one of the highlights, while Ry Cooder’s score adds enormously to the atmosphere.
After not seeing it for around 35 years, I was delighted to find that I still enjoyed the movie. The 4K presentation looks and sounds great, the packaging is attractive, the booklet is welcome and the quantity of supplementary material is genuinely impressive. Most importantly, though, the release reminded me why I enjoyed Johnny Handsome all those years ago. Sometimes a film just needs the right opportunity to be rediscovered. This is definitely one of those films.
Johnny Handsome is out now on 4K, Bluray, and Digital
