JOHNNY BE GOOD (1988)
Tagline: Every college in the country wants Johnny. 'Cause, when he's good he's very very good. And when he's bad he's better.
(Comedy, Sports, All The Crappy Parts Of The ’80s Rolled Into One Movie) [R]
Note - The theatrical version was rated PG-13. I ended up seeing the R version on a streaming service.
In a decade of films mostly known for fantastic horror and some of the best sci-fi flicks ever made, great comedies were very few and very far between. There might be 50 decent ones in the entire decade (so maybe 5 per year).
In this one, Johnny Walker is the most highly recruited football player, and pretty much every college wants him to be their quarterback, the only one that seems to be undecided about where Johnny should go. That’s it, that is pretty much what’s going on in this damn thing.
First off any review saying this movie doesn’t have some funny moments is likely bashing the movie just because it’s bad. I am pretty tough to please when it comes to movies I don’t like and then still being able to recognize good humor here and there. This movie has some funny moments, but one of the weakest storylines of any of the 80’s comedies. Perhaps aside from that crap fest ST. ELMO’S FIRE this one is probably the worst 80’s comedy I’ve reviewed.
This movie is loaded with known names like Anthony Michael Hall (who plays Johnny Walker), Robert Downey Jr. (who plays Leo), and Uma Thurman (who plays Georgia) in only her 3rd movie ever. Robert Downey Jr.’s character in this movie is just really freakin strange in not at all in a good way. It’s in more of a “who wrote this crap” way. There are literally scenes where he’s talking about punching girls. We also get Paul Gleason who is best known for being the detention administrator in THE BREAKFAST CLUB. However back in the ’80s and really even these days, great actors won’t necessarily fix a horribly miscast and terrible movie.
Highlighted in the movie is how corrupt college recruiting is. I live in AZ so even a few of the colleges here have been punished for recruiting nonsense as recently as 2021. It’s not really a subject I am interested in. I never mind that really when watching a movie in general, but the lack of actual humor and weird writing effort out of Steve Zacharias is just disappointing. Zacharias isn’t a perfect writer, but he was known for some huge comedies in the ’80s including a few of the REVENGE OF THE NERDS films.
If there is anything decent about this movie it’s the soundtrack overall. It features one of “Dirty Looks” only 4 good songs “It’s Not The Way You Rock” and “KIX”. If you can get “KIX” on your soundtrack, you just do that right away. There is also the Judas Priest version of “Johnny Be Good” in here, but that version has been widely panned.
Overall this is a wildly bad movie, unfortunately. I am going to give this a 2 out of 7 just for the soundtrack and a few funny moments.
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