Truly Dreadful Film

Let's be realistic.

Fantastic!

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Fred Williamson directs himself for the first time in Mean Johnny Barrows, a mercifully brief actioner which has a far better cast than it deserves. The plus points include the terrific soul-funk soundtrack (even if it is poured a little too thoughtlessly over the on-screen events), a memorable cameo appearance from Elliot Gould, and a handful of decently handled action sequences. The negatives would probably take too long to list in full, but chief amongst them are the general air of dispiritedness that hangs over the film, the hopelessly weak script and the largely listless acting. Folks like Roddy McDowall, Stuart Whitman and Luther Adler are capable of much more than is required of them here – their performances are lazy and unconvincing.Vietnam vet Johnny Barrows (Fred Williamson) returns from 'Nam with a dishonourable discharge after striking his commanding officer (the C.O. did deserve it though, having let Johnny step on a live land-mine as a prank). Johnny returns to his home town but finds it tough getting by. Jobs are few; crime and mugging is aplenty; and the cops seem more part of the problem than the solution. Johnny is approached by gangster Mario Racconi (Stuart Whitman), who offers him a job as a well-paid hired heavy, carrying out beatings and killings for the powerful Racconi family. Johnny refuses point blank, taking up an honest job at a petrol station instead. Meanwhile, gang warfare erupts between the Racconis and a new Mob family-in-town, the Da Vinces. Johnny tries to remain impartial to the violence, but when Mario's girlfriend Nancy (Jenny Sherman) is taken prisoner by the da Vinces he finally snaps. Seems Johnny has developed a soft spot for Nancy and won't stand for her coming to any harm. He finally relents and agrees to go after the da Vinces, working through the entire family, including the youngest son, Tony (Roddy McDowall).There's a plot twist towards the end which doesn't make much sense, including a particularly bizarre final scene involving a land-mine (presumably intended to link things back to the opening scene?) The relationship between Nancy and Johnny – so important to the plot, since it governs his ultimate decision to start killing people after spending most of the film trying to go straight – is hopelessly under-developed. Sherman is too bland as Nancy anyway, making it hard to understand exactly what draws Johnny to her in the first place. There are a few flashes of neatly choreographed, violent action, but all in all Mean Johnny Barrows is a pretty lacklustre offering which isn't worth making any effort to see.

I wanted to see this movie, Williamson's debut as a director, because I have long suspected that Williamson once knew how to make an action movie (at least Blaxploitation style) and later got bored and started directing filler.Well, I was wrong - Williamson was a bad director from the get go.The problem with most of his films - including this one - is that one has a right to expect action from an action film, even if it has some other comment to make. Williamson's action scenes are invariably dull, routine, cliché, and not very frequent.When I see a character in an action film pull out a gun, I expect him to shoot something or somebody - not just stand around posing as if just holding a gun was in itself exciting - one might as well hold a broom.But as in most Williamson-directs-Williamson films, when the gun comes out... he stands and, well... just stands there.An off-beat Elliot Gould performance slips through - otherwise, noting much here. And Landau is at his worst, which is just what Mr. Williamson wanted from him - what a waste of time! Don't let it waste yours.

I found this flick on a three movie DVD compilation of Fred Williamson films for around three or four bucks. I discovered it at the supermarket of all places and what a return on that initial four dollar investment (If you strung together the randomly occurring "good bits" from all three shows you'd have one cool, effectively kick-ass movie-- it wouldn't make any sense of course but it'd be chock full of good bits!).I love Fred Williamson-- he's like the funky love-child of John Cassavetes and Jim Brown. There may be rambling and fumbled story lines and plot focus, the quality of the production may waver and shift with the tenuous availability of funds, always some friends-doing-a-favor-casting, bizarre and clunky setups, obtuse angles and ham-fisted camera work, self-indulgent faux-introspective montage, and lots of technical sloppiness and cheap shortcuts are all evident throughout his oeuvre. But the fervent passion and pure love for cinema all seem to somehow leak through like tepid, runny kindergarten paste holding everything together by some incredulous force of will. Fred's shrewd and clever will.Fred may not be easily filed in the same category with directors of such influence and artistic gravitas as Lang, Welles, or Kurosawa, but they probably wouldn't mind hanging out with him over a couple of drinks and some girls.Mean Johnny Barrows is not a good movie. But it is fun, goofy, dumb, sleazy, cheap, silly and thrilling. For the right pair of eyes that delight in the subtle contextual appreciations of Blaxploitation, Crime/Mob Pictures, or just choice 1970's trashy film-making it is an inimitable masterpiece.The casting is priceless. Luther Adler is perfect as a post-Godfather era cardboard cut-out patriarch with the additional ludicrous premise of having Roddy McDowall play his own son. McDowall's hairstyle alone is enough to justify purchasing this movie, with the appearance of a melting dollop of brown Cool Whip. He frets and blanches and swallows as a Fredoesque nervous Nellie, uncomfortable with his familial role as oldest son and next-in-line Family Boss.The astounding Stuart Whitman plays a rival Mob Boss who owns an Italian Restaurant and spends most of the time interfering in the kitchen. His hair also invokes an instinctual fight-or-flight response like Mary-Tyler Moore at an Alice Cooper concert. He has a strange tendency to instantaneously change entire outfits without warning in a singular scene. He also keeps one arm stiffly bent at chest level at all times for no discernible reason whatsoever and in most scenes appears to have been sleeping in his wardrobe, woken up only seconds before filming any of his takes.R.G. Armstong is undeniably electrifying as the filling station owner who reluctantly gives the jobless and homeless Mean Johnny Barrows employment for no other reason than he needs someone to clean his bathrooms.And Elliot Gould makes his legendary "Special Appearance" as the worlds most colorful and erudite hobo in motion picture history.There's lots of music and walking sequences, bad suits, nasty cops, bigotry, ambition, and eating out of garbage cans. There's romance and violence and lots of giant 70's cars pulling in and out of driveways, all inevitably leading up to fisticuffs and gratuitous gun play, of course.I would say if you have four bucks in change floating around inside your couch or car or even in the pockets of an old coat in storage somewhere and you have developed an appreciation for this enjoyable genre, trade in those rolls of pennies and pick it up! 'Cause at the end of the day, it's all about Fred.

I got this film as part of this budget "Bad Brothas, Mean Mothas" boxed set, and watched this one first, because it stars Fred "Super-stud" Willaimson. I was surprised at what different and ambitous movie this is. Whether it lives up to all that ambition...Rather than a typical revenge fantasy (nothing wrong with those, but...) this film follows Johnny B. as he tries to get a job and resist joining the mob after being dishonorably discharged from the army for striking a white officer (after being, to put it lightly, provoked).It takes a while as the film unfolds to realize that he's not, as usually happens in these movies, going to get p***ed and get even. He is arrested and tormented by the police to which he won't even give his name or say anything. For a while I thought he was dazed by being beaten earlier, but by the time he gets to the police station he should be more coherent. Then I thought "Well, he's just so COOL that he won't even dignify those cops by talking to them," but then that falls apart as well and... I just don't know why he wouldn't talk. Because it's a plot point, I suspect.The main idea of the story is Johnny trying to get a real job, and resist the mobsters who are offering him big money to become a hit man.(SPOILERS AHEAD----->)The arc of the movie hinges on Johnny's love for a woman (a WHITE woman, no less), which we are supposed to understand leads to him finally agreeing to work for the mob in order to avenge her rape. Sadly, this entire aspect of the film just doesn't come off at all, as there is barely any connection between him and the woman, there is no discernible chemistry between them... there's just nothing. (more spoilers here:) Another interesting thing about the structure of the film is how Johnny ends up the head of this crime organization at the end. It's just kind of interesting and unexpected. Then he offers his love to the woman, and instead of saying "Yes Johnny, take me anywhere and make love to me all day and all night! Do it right here! Do it right now!" like any sane woman or man would do, she... has a different reaction. And this leads to another surprising thing: the ending, which I totally didn't expect, but won't give away.This movie being directed by Fred himself adds a dimension to all the adoring shots of himself glaring face-on into the camera, but hey, he looks great and he knows it. I also like the change when he finally gets into those slick suits. The cheap DVD I got REALLY suffers from not being widescreen, as Fred seems to like to place his characters on opposite ends of the screen, and it seemed like more than half of the movie featured half a person's face or shuttled back and forth between the ends of the screen.A lot of people posting here have talked about how slow this movie is... I think because they're expecting a traditional revenge tale. This movie is not the greatest, but I think it deserves to be admired for the unconventionality of the story, and the aspects of 70s black culture (namely trying to get a decent job without any credentials, the difficulty of avoiding drawn into crime, in addition to the hammered in "plight of the veteran" aspects) that you don't see covered in other movies, which I think makes it kind of a little gem.--- Check out website devoted to bad and cheesy movies: www.cinemademerde.com