Johnny Be Good (1988)

Summary

A high school football star is aggressively recruited by colleges.

Director

Bud Smith

Downey Factor

Medium. Anthony Michael Hall is the star of this one.

Character

Leo Wiggins, sidekick to Anthony Michael Hall's star football player.

Looks

Not bad, but not outstanding.

Performance

Comedic, but beyond off-beat.

Dies, Gay or Villain

No, no, no.

Cast

Anthony Michael Hall, Uma Thurman, Robert Downey Sr.

Connection

Anthony Michael Hall in Hail Caesar and Weird Science.

Robert Downey Sr.'s Hugo Pool, Pound, Moment to Moment, Up the Academy, Rented Lips, America, Too Much Sun, Greaser's Palace, in The Last Party and Sr.

Jennifer Tilly in Rented Lips.

RDJ Says

[The critics] hated me in Johnny Be Good. The Los Angeles Times crucified me. They said I sounded like Pee-wee Herman emerging from a coma.

Availability

Released in theaters 25 March 1988. Available on Blu-ray and DVD in Region 1, on DVD in Region 2 and 4.

Foreign Titles

Brazil: Johnny Bom de Transa (Johnny Does It Well)
Denmark: Johnny Walker og Damerne (Johnny Walker and the Ladies)
Italy: La Grande Promessa (The Great Promise)
Spain: Johnny Superstar

Rotten Tomatoes

0% Fresh | 11 Reviews

Critical View

Michael Wilmington, The Los Angeles Times: A would-be satire on the excesses of big-time college football recruiting, is so bad that the NCAA might consider using it as punishment for coaches who violate regulations ... The only way the actors can make their lines play is to scream them into incomprehensibility. Even that doesn’t always work: Robert Downey Jr.—straying disastrously into Robin Williams territory—burbles out a string of ludicrous improvisations that sound like Pee-wee Herman emerging from a coma.

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The people who made this movie should be ashamed of themselves. There are a lot of good screenplays to be filmed and only a limited amount of money to go around.

Hal Hinson, Washington Post: Many things happen in Hollywood that can't be explained by normal, right-thinking people. But this movie is so crass, so vulgar, so relentlessly brain-dead that, watching it, you think your imagination is beginning to play tricks on you. Robert Downey Jr. couldn't have threatened to blow his brains out with a rubber dart gun, could he? It had to have been a hallucination.

Does It Hold Up

The question is more like, does it have anything to live up to? No. It was bad. Now it's bad and outdated.

2 Reasons to See It

1. You're an aspiring screenwriter who needs assurance that any terrible script might get shot.
2. A rare event: Anthony Michael Hall plays a cool guy.

Overall

Dull and stupid, but maybe you'll like it if you're into the Downey/Hall team.

If You Liked It

You might also like Weird Science (1985), Hail Caesar (1993), grain alcohol.

Photos

Video