Movie review: ‘Johnny Be Good’

FloridaGator80
A promotional still photograph from the movie “Johnny Be Good.”

Sometimes a film can be so bad that you like it. Since one of those doesn’t come immediately to my mind, I’m writing today about one that is really bad and is difficult to like: “Johnny Be Good.” You might not enjoy sitting through “Johnny Be Good,” but make sure you watch it. There are a few glimmers of comedy. Basically, it’s a football movie that is one of those films so bad you might be convinced there are no bright spots. Surprisingly, there are several here and it is only through a wretched screenplay and heavy-handed, incompetent direction that “Johnny Be Good” fails on all levels. You’ll find good turns here by Robert Downey Jr. and Paul Gleason … but not much else.

‘Johnny Be Good’
(1988; 91 minutes; rated R; directed by Bud Smith and starring Anthony Michael Hall, Robert Downey Jr., Uma Thurman and Paul Gleason)

HERE’S A STINKER AT MOST LEVELS

(NOTE: I expanded this review with a bit more opinion and updating some links on July 28, 2016. I again expanded it on Dec. 28, 2019. I again expanded it on May 6, 2026.)

“Johnny Be Good” tries to be an indictment of the recruitment of high school football players by colleges before paying players became legal and, instead, it becomes a felony conviction for filmmakers – they’re guilty beyond a shadow of doubt of horrible work with the result being the definition of a terrible motion picture.

Now, it’s not say that it’s utter dreck like anything from Sasha Baron Cohen or “Caddyshack II” bad (click here to read my review), but since “Johnny Be Good” has something of a message and some bright spots of good acting, it only turns out showing how to completely fumble the ball in film (as well as myself fracturing a pun).

A promotional still photograph from the movie “Johnny Be Good.”

The story is simple: the country’s top high school quarterback must decide where he’ll play college football (today, they usually decide by 10th grade and just enjoy keeping everyone guessing to the last minute – and thereby creating an industry that hangs on the gullibility of both fans and earn the teenagers getting attention while they’re not deserving of it). Sigh. It was a much simpler age in the ’80s.

In the movie, as in real life, “Johnny Be Good,” everyone is lining up to shovel money, girls or whatever his way. Not much changed in college recruiting until after 2020 when the “name-image-likeness” cash (NIL) and direct payment of players became legal.

Negotiating this minefield is Anthony Michael Hall as “Johnny Walker” (really? “Johnny Walker”?). He’s good looking, funny, smart and totally hacks off his girlfriend’s parents. Don’t worry, just like today’s top college prospects, he’ll be up for sale soon enough.

Hall marches straight through this role, but doesn’t bring too much to the table except in his scenes with the straight-arrow state college coach (Steve James) who gives an education but nothing else.

Hall doesn’t offer anything remarkable as a grown-up after graduating from “Sixteen Candles,” “Weird Science” (click here to read my review) and before TV’s “Pirates of Silicon Valley.” Oh, yes, he was in another of Hollywood’s all-time stinkers: “Freddy Got Fingered.” Forgive Hall for this one, he couldn’t help himself and apparently needed to cash a check. Personally, I liked him as “Harris Trout” on several episodes of TV’s “Psych.”

Now, for a couple of good performances here – despite all the obstacles …

  • A promotional still photograph from the movie “Johnny Be Good.”

    A two-time Oscar nominee (certainly not for this one), Robert “Iron Man” Downey Jr. plays “Leo Wiggins,” who is Hall’s best friend an ultimate inside recruiting font for one college. Downey is perfect as the manic bad influence on Hall and he plays it for all it’s worth. In one scene, it might have been ad-libbed for all I know because it’s so good, he tells about his “twisted” dreams. No bad. What’s too bad is his effort is wasted here. He was nominated for Oscars in “Chaplin” and “Tropic Thunder” and was in “Soapdish” and “Natural Born Killers.” I liked him better as the crazy college friend in “Back to School” with Rodney Dangerfield (click here to read my review).

  • A promotional still photograph from the movie “Johnny Be Good.”

    Former soap opera player Paul Gleason personifies perfection in how he plays sleazy high school coach “Wayne Hisler” – oh, gee … guess you can’t imagine why it’s “Hisler.” Gleason’s character is totally classless while believing himself classy; dumb while considering himself to be smart; and frustrating while being frustrated by Hall. Gleason, who was the principal over Hall in “Sixteen Candles,” eases from one scene to the next with the anticipation that you know you’re going to enjoy his work. Gleason has also been a similar type character as a bumbling cop in “Die Hard” (click here for my review) as well as veteran of a string of TV roles. He was solid as a bad guy in the comedy classic “Trading Places” with Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy (click here to read my review). Gleason died at 67 of mesothelioma in 20006.

Now, let me take a look at some of the supporting cast …

  • James, as “Coach Sanders,” is affable as well as smart, wise and he doesn’t give deals. James, who can win you over in a scene with just his smile, has two excellent scenes with Hall: both in his office where first he is asked for a deal and declines and then at the end when he accepts a contrite Hall onto his team. James, who died young at 41 of cancer in 1993, is smooth and engaging. He was also in “Weird Science” with Hall as well as “I’m Gonna Get You Sucka.”
  • A promotional still photograph from the movie “Johnny Be Good.”

    An Oscar nominee (not for this one), Uma Thurman, who was in her second film role and Tarantino-favorite-to-be, doesn’t do much as “Georgia Elkans,” who is Hall’s girlfriend. I’ll give her credit for trying, but you can row only so far upstream in this one. You’ll certainly like Thurman better in the “Kill Bill” films (or film, as Quentin calls it). More recently, she’s been in “The War With Grandpa” with Robert De Niro (click here to read my review).

  • A promotional still photograph from the movie “Johnny Be Good.”

    Speaking of not doing much, John Pankow in an uncredited role as “Lou Landers” is in the same leaky boat as Thurman. Pankow plays the crookedest of the recruiters and you’ll find Pankow can actually act in “To Live and Die in L.A.” (click here to read my review).

  • Jennifer Tilly has a small role as Gleason’s wife “Connie Hisler.” It’s not a very good role. However, she has done some outstanding work if you check her out in “Liar, Liar” (click here to read my review). Less effective is her work in the remake of the “The Getaway” (watch the original where Sally Struthers played the original character – click here to read my review) but she was solid in the little-remembered but very amusing “Let it Ride” with Richard Dreyfuss (click here to read my review).
  • Oscar nominee (not for this one) Seymour Cassel plays “Wallace Gibson,” who is the president of one university and needs a quick winner on the football field. Cassel does a smooth job navigating through this one, but you don’t get his best effort because of the malodorous nature of the film. Cassel was also in “The Royal Tenenbaums” and got his nomination for 1969’s “Faces” that was directed by John Cassavetes.
A promotional still photograph from the movie “Johnny Be Good.”

At one level, the actors are left wanting because of deficient direction and a screenplay that reads as if a fifth-grade class did it as a project. It’s all too easy to name the bad scenes here:

  • The football game on the front lawn of Thurman’s house. Her father, the police chief, and his officers challenge Hall and his friends to a game. It is just simply horrid.
  • The scenes of Hall drumming while watching football clips on TV. Why? If there was a reason, it isn’t obvious and that’s the only way this film can make a point. Well, in all fairness, the film offers no layers, nuance or other technique associated with a competent motion picture.
  • The scene at Gleason’s home where Hall and Downey play predictable practical jokes such as pizza delivery. It’s a mess. The filmmaking is so bad that when a guy with a pick hits a water line the water squirts from a nozzle clearly away from where the pick went in.
  • The scenes where Hall and Downey are arrested and then confronted in jail by Gleason. Lots of potential here (and one funny line from Downey) but squandered by the director.
  • Any interaction between Hall and Thurman’s father (Marshall Bell as “Chief Elkans”). Bell was also in the original “Total Recall” and “Starship Troopers.”
  • Any scene with Hall’s grandfather (George Hall as “Grandpa Walker”). Each one comes off contrived and forced, but I’ll blame the director and not the actor for this part of the overall mess.
  • The cameo by real life sportscaster Howard Cosell. It’s an embarrassment for Cosell, who really shouldn’t have been given or allowed to accept this small part. Blame both for this mistake.

You can count funny or good these few examples:

  • The recruiters for Alabama and Penn State bicker as if they were married. They pop up here and there in the film and probably could have had their own sitcom if this film came out in 2000. Good work, guys.
  • Hall’s speech at the end where he’s to announce his choice of colleges isn’t bad, but maybe I’m giving it good marks because Hall and the rest of the film is just so putrid.
  • The barbershop conversation between Hall and Gleason. Not bad and helped immensely by Downey’s kibitzing.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this one has a happy ending for everyone deserving it and consequences for those in line for comeuppance. Why not close out a bad motion picture effort with a stereotyped ending? I’m sure it couldn’t have happened any other way.

“Johnny Be Good” somehow was the 59th film of 1988 at the domestic box office with $17.5 million, according to Box Office Mojo. It’s difficult to believe that many people wasted their money. The overrated “Rain Man” was the No. 1 film of the year with $172.8 million. Another sports-oriented film was 18th as “Bull Durham” pulled in $50.8 million. Here are the films from that year that I’ve reviewed for my blog:

Assorted cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):

  • A photograph from the movie “Johnny Be Good.”

    Former football star Jim McMahon of the Chicago Bears makes a cameo here. It is one of 25 “self” credits for him in his career.

  • Hall’s full birth name is Michael Anthony Thomas Charles Hall; Downey’s middle name is John; Gleason’s middle name was Xavier; Thurman’s middle name is Karuna; and Tilly’s birth name is Jennifer Ellen Chan.
  • The awful film on the drive-in screen in the movie is from “Putney Swope,” a film from 1969 that was written and directed by Downey’s father, Robert Downey Sr. Downey Sr. has the role of the NCAA investigator “Floyd Gandolfini” in this one.
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “Producer Richard Davis was able to pick up the use of the Alamo Heights historic mansion for “next to nothing” because the owner liked Anthony Michael Hall very much. The star agreed to meet the owners and spent the better part of the evening talking with their children.”
  • “Johnny Be Good” is Bud S. Smith’s only credit for directing. That’s the best news to come out of this bomb. Oh, he didn’t have the “S” in the film’s credits and, surprisingly, is a two-time Oscar nominee (both for film editing). Not surprisingly, neither nomination was for directing a film.
  • IMDb.com’s trivia page is as bad as the film …

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