Walter Hill's 1989 morality play sees Mickey Rourke gives one of his very best performances as a deformed crook given plastic surgery and a second chance for either redemption or revenge. Given short shrift from most critics and making little impact at the box-office, Johnny Handsome is a minor classic waiting to be discovered, a pulp noir thriller in the RKO mold lifted into another class by the conviction of the cast and direction.

Hill's direction is a refreshing return to the form he hadn't quite managed to hit since The Driver, with a title sequence reminiscent of The Warriors briskly setting both the scene and the pace and acting as a prelude to the fluid, fast-cut action scenes. Originally developed for Robert De Niro, Rourke lends considerable depth to the part, making interesting use of his voice in the early scenes, Ellen Barkin and Lance Henriksen make a convincingly sleazy pair of villains, Freeman walks away with everybody else's scenes and, as usual, Elizabeth McGovern does her best with an almost non-existant role. Only the normally reliable Whittaker stumbles with his role, serving the narrative demands of his part without ever really getting inside it, but that's a small price to pay for a thriller as good as this.

Unfortunately LionsGate's DVD is a shoddy fullframe transfer, so those with multi-region players might want to pick up the PAL Region 2 DVD instead, which boasts a decent 1.8:1 transfer and the original trailer.

This is a great movie that deserves a better DVD release - audio/video remastered and, please, PLEASE! Get it right and make it widescreen this time around.

This movie really holds up even today. Mickey Rourke does a spectacular job as the disfigured con who gets a new face. He has the tenderness underneath the tough exterior, always a winning combination for me.
Ellen Barkin is great too as the tough moll gal. Lots of action and lots of drama. Highly recommended

This movie is profound in it's ability to show how background and circumstances can come back to haunt someone and how difficult it is to change even when given all the best options in the world. Every actor in the movie is good and Rourke is exceptional.

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.