Walter Hill has tended to be most inspired and inspiring when prowling the boundaries of film genres, knocking down a section of fence, burrowing an underground tunnel between them, establishing fuzzy communication by means of two tin cans and a string. In Johnny Handsome, a fable about a small-time criminal afflicted with leontiasis who is given a new face through plastic surgery and a new chance at life, Hill tends only very slightly towards inspiration. If the surgical magic in itself doesn't nudge the crime drama into the purview of science fiction, the application and theory of it will prod it the rest of the way: the theory, baldly stated, that cosmetic surgery "can be a deterrent to criminal recidivism." (Which gives us a vision of a future where enlightened criminal-court justices would hand down nose jobs and chin tucks to convicted felons.) The disbelieving cop on the case, besides keeping the movie firmly planted on the Mean Streets of film noir, performs the obligatory rationalist antiphon to the ravings of the Mad, or merely Crackpot, Scientist. The whole thing brings to mind such other samples of physiognomic sci-fi as Frankenheimer's unsung Seconds and Teshigahara's almost unseen Face of Another. But although there is a middle section of the movie, a blissfully nonviolent section, when the outcome of the experiment is not altogether apparent, there is little real tension, little real struggle, over how it will ultimately turn out. Hill's habitual briskness, an asset in straight-ahead action films like The Warriors and Extreme Prejudice, is a debit here. And the movie never gets closer than shouting distance to the hoped-for inspiration. Mickey Rourke, Elizabeth McGovern, Ellen Barkin, Lance Henriksen, Morgan Freeman, Forest Whitaker. (1989) — Duncan Shepherd
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