Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		2.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

Johnny Be Good Blu-ray Movie Review

Watered down.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman July 19, 2015

"Chuck! Chuck, it's Marvin. Your cousin, Marvin Berry. You know that new movie you're looking for? Well, stay away from this!"

Is it irony or coincidence that Johnny Be Good's lead character is named after a world-famous Scotch label (minor spelling differences aside)? How about an all-time classic tune? If there is any irony, it's missing on this reviewer, but then again so too is any real point to the movie, period. Johnny Be Good is Oscar-nominated Editor Bud Smith's (The Exorcist , Flashdance) one and only stab at directing, and sad to say the film proves to be a stale, empty affair that should have been a much more fascinating character study and could have been a much funnier Comedy but is instead neither, winding up a shallow, hopelessly dull experience built around an endless parade of extreme caricatures that drown out any semblance of dramatic weight and narrative efficiency.

Decision time.

Johnny Walker (Anthony Michael Hall) is the mostly highly recruited high school quarterback in the nation. He's literally got schools from all over the country beating down his door, following his every move, and promising him the moon if hell just commit to their program. One Texas school woos him with women and makes large purchases from his father's fledgeling business as a means of "recruiting" him. His coach (Paul Gleason) is hoping to use Walker's celebrity to land a better gig at a high-paying college. His girlfriend Georgia (Uma Thurman) wants him to go to school with her and actually learn something off the field. His friend Leo (Robert Downey Jr.), the team's backup quarterback who only gets to play when Walker feigns injury, thinks he should play the field and get every last little nickel, dime, and perk he can find. As Walker finds himself constantly at the center of attention, he becomes a changed person, and not necessarily for the better. Can he maneuver the minefield of fame and settle on what's best for him, or will the allure of false promises and phony enthusiasm lead him astray?

Johnny Be Good is no He Got Game. Spike Lee would explore much the same territory more than a decade after Johnny Be Good in a remarkably richer, grittier, more detailed, more human film. Johnny Be Good is a parody in contrast, a movie that takes a solid enough idea and, remarkably, does nothing with it. It's a completely joyless film on one hand and an empty experience on the other, never finding either the comedic charm or the character construction to which it hints for the duration. Through crude plot details alone the film still offers a decent look into the (realistic? grossly exaggerated? somewhere in the middle?) recruitment process, of what might happen when the top prospect is wooed, wined, dined, oohed, and awed by a number of schools that throw every bone they can in his direction, save for one, that will require him to attend class and work hard in exchange for the free ride and his on-field services. Wonder which one he'll pick in the end? Decisions, decisions...

It might be interesting if it weren't so transparent, if there were real moral quagmires, if there was depth. What Johnny Be Good does instead is gloss over the good stuff in a futile effort to be funny, which it can be in a few places, but the laughs gets repetitive and the drama gets ever more cliché as the chaos piles up and Johnny rides the curve of personal highs and lows until he finally learns a few things through his experiences. Every character -- even Johnny -- amounts to little more than a vessel, a necessary cog that keeps the film ticking along, none of which are in the least bit creatively constructed or built for any purpose other than story progression. Whether in the recruiters, Johnny's friends, or Johnny himself, the film fails to offer much reason to care. That's a shame, because Johnny Be Good does assemble a pretty stellar cast, including the then-hot Anthony Michael Hall, fresh off one of the best runs of any career, that era or otherwise, with Weird Science, The Breakfast Club, and Sixteen Candles on his resumé. The film may be of some interest to movie fans who can see both Robert Downey, Jr. and Uma Thurman in very early (and young!) roles. The picture also features a number of excellent character actors in key roles, including Seymour Cassel and Paul Gleason (who starred along Hall in The Breakfast Club).

Johnny Be Good Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

At least Johnny Be Good looks, well, good. Olive Films' 1080p transfer may not go down as the best catalogue release of all time, but for a somewhat obscure little movie approaching three decades in age, the results are quite impressive. The image presents in a nicely filmic manner, retaining a light grain structure and yielding nicely rich and complex details. The picture is naturally sharp and precise, presenting faces and clothes -- football jerseys and heavy plaid sports coats in particular -- very well. Little bits around various locations -- from Johnny's modest home to a Texas-sized mansion -- look terrific, particularly nitty-gritty bits like brickwork and natural vegetation. Colors are bold and satisfying, too, with, again, the high school team's blue and yellow color scheme, loud plaid jackets, and leafy and grassy greens the standouts. Flesh tones aren't troublesome, and neither are black levels. Minor pops and speckling creep in at times, but other artifacts are largely absent. Though not a total standout, this appears to be a near best-case scenario short of a full, and costly, restoration.

Johnny Be Good Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Johnny Be Good won't dazzle many fans with its lackluster DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack. It's baseline satisfactory but hardly a recruit-worthy standout. There's some underlying scratchiness and hissing in some places, which proves bothersome but not scene-destroying. Musical definition is never all that great. It's a bit cramped, too, pushing towards the middle and never finding much breathing room. The film is largely dialogue intensive, however, and the spoken word does play with a generally good center-imaged placement and rather easy clarity.

Johnny Be Good Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Johnny Be Good contains no bonus content. The main menu only offers selections for "Play" and "Chapters."

Johnny Be Good Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Just watch He Got Game instead. Johnny Be Good is a shell of that movie. It's a film that could have been so much more but proves to be a mind-boggling, aimless picture that's neither dramatically satisfying nor all that humorous, at least not consistently so. Characters are shallow, the film plays with poor pacing, and audiences are left always waiting for it have something to show for its efforts. It's not the worst thing in the world -- it's technically sound, at least -- but it's just oh-so-disappointing and pointless. Olive Films' Blu-ray release of Johnny Be Good features solid video and passable audio. No extras are included. Skip it.