Product Details

• Actors: Mickey Rourke, Ellen Barkin, Elizabeth McGovern, Morgan Freeman, Forest Whitaker
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Live / Artisan
• VHS Release Date: December 14, 1993
• Run Time: 96 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301608119
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #270,172 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good film, bad DVD, September 21, 2005

By 

O. B. Tryggvason (Gardabaer Iceland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Johnny Handsome (DVD)

This moody drama piece is for the most part very good. Mickey Rourke is excellent in the title role; a disfigured criminal who gets a shot at redemption but ultimately chooses revenge.

Well directed by Walter Hill with a good music score by Ry Cooder. All the cast do a good job, the story is tight and fast paced and some good action sequences to boot.

Pity about the DVD, it's fullscreen and this deserves to be in glorious widescreen.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No honor among some thieves, May 17, 2003

By 

Jerry Fry (Freeman, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Johnny Handsome [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I have this movie on VHS so I can't comment on the quality of the DVD as others have. As far as the movie goes, it is somewhat gut wrenching. Mickey Rourke plays the part of John Sedley (Johnny Handsome), a horribly disfigured man due to a birth defect. He isn't stupid, although a life of crime is about all he's known, but he isn't difficult to identify. He has a good friend named Mikey (Scott Wilson) who is hurting for money and persuades Johnny to do a jewelry store holdup. Johnny plans it well but two of their accomplises (Lance Henriksen and Ellen Barkin) want it all for themselves. They kill the driver and Mikey and almost get Johnny too. Johnny ends up behind bars while Raff (Henriksen) and Sunny (Barkin) buy Mikey's old establishment and are living fairly well with the proceeds from the robbery. They try to get Johnny murdered while in prison but the attempt fails. Johnny wakes up in a hospital and sees Forrest Whitaker, a plastic surgeon who wants to give Johnny a new face and a new life and does. He gets Johnny a decent job and Johnny meets and falls in love with a woman (Elizabeth McGovern) he meets there. Johnny's parole officer (Morgan Freeman) is constantly keeping tabs on him because he knows what Johnny is going to try to do: exact revenge on the two people responsible for Mikey's death. They won't recognize him now, his looks and speech don't give him away. Donna (McGovern) is in love with Johnny, he tells her about his past. She tries to persuade him to leave the past behind but Johnny can't. He could never live with knowing that the two people who killed his best friend got away with it.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great motion picture, but a very poor dvd release., January 30, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Johnny Handsome (DVD)

I really liked this movie, so i bought it the moment it came out on DVD. But i have to say what a poor job did they do at Artisan. Full Screen transfer and blurry picture. I should say that they used a VHS tape as master for the dvd, what a mistake to make. So i give two stars because of the movie not because of the dvd release.
If you want to buy this picture on DVD, buy the region 2 version of Momentum. This edition is Widescreen Anamorphic and has really good picture quality.