...I liked it though , but this film won't be seen as a high point in the infamous genre thats for sure. I'd say they had a great enough story idea ,but probably not the right budget to bring this to life. The best parts of the flick are as follows :We have a young ,black non-commisioned officer in the U.S.Army ,who during a training mission is set up with a booby trap ,by other white racist officers. In anger the black guy lashes out,striking one them ,he is then railroaded into a dishonerable discharge and released from the military. Of course ,as we've seen in real life, chances of getting decent employment ,are limited when you're black ,near impossible with a bad discharge from uncle sams army. Johnny wanders the streets in a beautiful, though contrived looking montage sequence. The music is telling the story here ,and is wonderful considering the overall poor sound quality used in the film. Naturally he has run-ins with the local white racist pig -cops. Though he really does'nt want no trouble ,he's convinced by the local mafia that his bad fortunes will be turned around if he accepts "employment" with them. All he's gotta do ,of course is what the government trained him to...kill. With that, its all rather dull and uninspired action scenes we've seen hundreds ,if not millions of times before. The stodgy directing slows the action scenes down to a virtual crawl.Fred looks good in this,I mean ,I love to see the guy put in work ,especially the '70s Black action flix but this is a sleeper .
Review of Mean Johnny Barrows
