User Reviews

I wish someone would put Fred's directorial debut out in a decent widescreen DVD. The pan and scan versions out there now are so tightly cropped that they add a quality of hilarity even when the film is actually hitting some pretty serious notes (the pan and scan job is so bad it is almost like some kind of Austin Powers gag). But that said, I'm sure that much of the film would still be hilariously inept in any aspect ratio. In fact, the climax features THE most unintentionally comical Kung Fu fight ever put to film. I mean how often have you seen an actor start a butt-kicking by suddenly making snake moves with his hands and going "ASsssssssssshhhhhhhhsh sh sh sh"?

But there are some very effective moments as well, especially a brief cameo from Elliot Gould, who must have hit upon VERY hard times in the five years between MASH and this. And the sequence in which Johhny lets loose his anger by blasting and summarily cremating a mob boss almost seems like it's from another, much better, movie.

Anyway, it's a crazy hodgepodge, but I'd still like to see it in the original widescreen. Fred rules!

I found this flick on a three movie DVD compilation of Fred Williamson films for around three or four bucks. I discovered it at the supermarket of all places and what a return on that initial four dollar investment (If you strung together the randomly occurring "good bits" from all three shows you'd have one cool, effectively kick-ass movie-- it wouldn't make any sense of course but it'd be chock full of good bits!).

I love Fred Williamson-- he's like the funky love-child of John Cassavetes and Jim Brown. There may be rambling and fumbled story lines and plot focus, the quality of the production may waver and shift with the tenuous availability of funds, always some friends-doing-a-favor-casting, bizarre and clunky setups, obtuse angles and ham-fisted camera work, self-indulgent faux-introspective montage, and lots of technical sloppiness and cheap shortcuts are all evident throughout his oeuvre. But the fervent passion and pure love for cinema all seem to somehow leak through like tepid, runny kindergarten paste holding everything together by some incredulous force of will. Fred's shrewd and clever will.

Fred may not be easily filed in the same category with directors of such influence and artistic gravitas as Lang, Welles, or Kurosawa, but they probably wouldn't mind hanging out with him over a couple of drinks and some girls.

Mean Johnny Barrows is not a good movie. But it is fun, goofy, dumb, sleazy, cheap, silly and thrilling. For the right pair of eyes that delight in the subtle contextual appreciations of Blaxploitation, Crime/Mob Pictures, or just choice 1970's trashy film-making it is an inimitable masterpiece.

The casting is priceless. Luther Adler is perfect as a post-Godfather era cardboard cut-out patriarch with the additional ludicrous premise of having Roddy McDowall play his own son. McDowall's hairstyle alone is enough to justify purchasing this movie, with the appearance of a melting dollop of brown Cool Whip. He frets and blanches and swallows as a Fredoesque nervous Nellie, uncomfortable with his familial role as oldest son and next-in-line Family Boss.

The astounding Stuart Whitman plays a rival Mob Boss who owns an Italian Restaurant and spends most of the time interfering in the kitchen. His hair also invokes an instinctual fight-or-flight response like Mary-Tyler Moore at an Alice Cooper concert. He has a strange tendency to instantaneously change entire outfits without warning in a singular scene. He also keeps one arm stiffly bent at chest level at all times for no discernible reason whatsoever and in most scenes appears to have been sleeping in his wardrobe, woken up only seconds before filming any of his takes.

R.G. Armstong is undeniably electrifying as the filling station owner who reluctantly gives the jobless and homeless Mean Johnny Barrows employment for no other reason than he needs someone to clean his bathrooms.

And Elliot Gould makes his legendary "Special Appearance" as the worlds most colorful and erudite hobo in motion picture history.

There's lots of music and walking sequences, bad suits, nasty cops, bigotry, ambition, and eating out of garbage cans. There's romance and violence and lots of giant 70's cars pulling in and out of driveways, all inevitably leading up to fisticuffs and gratuitous gun play, of course.

I would say if you have four bucks in change floating around inside your couch or car or even in the pockets of an old coat in storage somewhere and you have developed an appreciation for this enjoyable genre, trade in those rolls of pennies and pick it up! 'Cause at the end of the day, it's all about Fred.

**SPOILER ALERT** Drummed out of the US Army for slugging his CO Capt. O'Malley, Aaron Banks, Johnny Barrows, Fred Williamson, drifts into town looking for a job ending up instead beaten and robbed by a couple of homeboys as soon as he leaves the bus.

Picked up by the cops thinking that he's a homeless drunk, homeless yes drunk no, Johnny gets worked over again at the jail house until the precinct captain who recognized Johnny as a star high school and collage football player, and decorated Vietnam War Vet, intervenes. At first Johnny is nothing but a shell of his former self going around town looking for a job as well as a free meal. While on skid row Johnny runs into Elliott Gould playing the part of a hobo wise-man who's name, Prof.Theodore Rasputin Waterhouse, is longer then the part that he has in the movie. We see Theodore teach Johnny the fine points of living and surviving on the streets by getting a unsuspecting soul, at a hot-dog stand, to share his frankfurter with him and Johnny.

Johnny had earlier gotten to know Mafiso bigwig Mario Racconi, Stuart Whitman, when he tried to get a free meal of spaghetti and meatballs at his restaurant which Mario overruled his angry chef, Jan J. Madrid, and gave him. Johnny also met Mario's girlfriend Nancy, Jenny Sherman, who took a strange liking to the wandering and homeless vet. It's when Mario offered Johnny a job as a hit-man for his organization he respectfully turned it down having done enough hit's in Nam then he would like to remember.

Still out to make an honest living Johnny ends up cleaning bathrooms and mopping floors at Richard's, R.G Armstrong, gas station but the cheap and ungrateful Richard, after Johnny broke his back working for him, gives Johnny a measly 21 dollars that comes out to something like .70 a day, for the month that he was employed by him. This leads Johnny to lose his cool and Richard to lose a couple of his teeth. Ending up again at the jail-house Johnny is set free with the help of the Racconi mob who got the now scared to death Richard to drop all charges against Johnny.

Mario together with his father Mafia Don Racconi, Luther Adler,had been gunned down by the rival De Vince Mob at a meeting of the minds between the two gang leaders about the trafficking of deadly and illegal drugs on the streets of L.A which Don Racconi was deathly against. With Mario surviving the shoot-out, his father Don Racconi didn't, he gets Johnny to agree to hit the De Vincie mob as a favor to him and Nancy whom Johnny has since fallen in love with.

Knocking off the entire De Vince Mob that included Don De Vince, Anthony Caruso, and his young and schmucky son Tony, Roddy McDowall, Johnny didn't realize that Tony was actually Nancy's man! Tony was planning with Nancy to get his father's and the Racconi Mob to kill each other off and then take take off with Nancy and both mob's assets to Mexico.

During the final stages of warfare with the De Vince mob Johnny come to battle it out again with the former Capt. O'Malley Johnny's old Army CO, who got him canned out of the service, who's now a martial arts hit man for the De Vincie's. O'Malley was no pushover using karate and judo tactics on Johnny but in the end Johnny get's the upper hand by returning a deadly flying star back to O'Malley throat.

The ending of "Mean Johnny Barrows" was a bit confusing not that Johnny was doubled-crossed by Nancy, whom we already knew was two-timing him, but the way Nancy was finished off seemed a bit out of place; stepping on a land mine in lovely and crime-free Malibu?

I got this film as part of this budget "Bad Brothas, Mean Mothas" boxed set, and watched this one first, because it stars Fred "Super-stud" Willaimson. I was surprised at what different and ambitous movie this is. Whether it lives up to all that ambition...

Rather than a typical revenge fantasy (nothing wrong with those, but...) this film follows Johnny B. as he tries to get a job and resist joining the mob after being dishonorably discharged from the army for striking a white officer (after being, to put it lightly, provoked).

It takes a while as the film unfolds to realize that he's not, as usually happens in these movies, going to get p***ed and get even. He is arrested and tormented by the police to which he won't even give his name or say anything. For a while I thought he was dazed by being beaten earlier, but by the time he gets to the police station he should be more coherent. Then I thought "Well, he's just so COOL that he won't even dignify those cops by talking to them," but then that falls apart as well and... I just don't know why he wouldn't talk. Because it's a plot point, I suspect.

The main idea of the story is Johnny trying to get a real job, and resist the mobsters who are offering him big money to become a hit man.

(SPOILERS AHEAD----->)The arc of the movie hinges on Johnny's love for a woman (a WHITE woman, no less), which we are supposed to understand leads to him finally agreeing to work for the mob in order to avenge her rape. Sadly, this entire aspect of the film just doesn't come off at all, as there is barely any connection between him and the woman, there is no discernible chemistry between them... there's just nothing.

(more spoilers here:) Another interesting thing about the structure of the film is how Johnny ends up the head of this crime organization at the end. It's just kind of interesting and unexpected. Then he offers his love to the woman, and instead of saying "Yes Johnny, take me anywhere and make love to me all day and all night! Do it right here! Do it right now!" like any sane woman or man would do, she... has a different reaction. And this leads to another surprising thing: the ending, which I totally didn't expect, but won't give away.

This movie being directed by Fred himself adds a dimension to all the adoring shots of himself glaring face-on into the camera, but hey, he looks great and he knows it. I also like the change when he finally gets into those slick suits. The cheap DVD I got REALLY suffers from not being widescreen, as Fred seems to like to place his characters on opposite ends of the screen, and it seemed like more than half of the movie featured half a person's face or shuttled back and forth between the ends of the screen.

A lot of people posting here have talked about how slow this movie is... I think because they're expecting a traditional revenge tale. This movie is not the greatest, but I think it deserves to be admired for the unconventionality of the story, and the aspects of 70s black culture (namely trying to get a decent job without any credentials, the difficulty of avoiding drawn into crime, in addition to the hammered in "plight of the veteran" aspects) that you don't see covered in other movies, which I think makes it kind of a little gem.

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This blaxploitation stars Fred Williamson, who also directed it. It's a bit more drama-driven than these films tend to be with Williamson's character being discharged from the army and finding life as a civilian difficult, leading to him getting involved with mobsters. Williamson is a good action star but he is fairly one note actor so he doesn't bring much to the table here with this one. Its actually a bit of a snooze-fest really, with little of it registering at all. It can only really be recommended to the most forgiving blaxploitation fans.

I just want to say that this is a lot better than the last film I watched with Fred Williamson (Adios Amigo). But Mean Johnny Barrows is a crime film that has an interesting story, but is poorly executed across the big screen due to lousy direction from star Fred Williamson. In this snoozefest he is kicked out of the army for striking an officer. He then has a streak of bad luck starting with a beat down by the police. Then our hero is a hobo, homeless in extreme poverty. He then moves on up by scrubbing toilets in a gas station before taking a job as mob hitman. What else happens is hazy in memory due to struggling to stay awake in this poorly put together snoozefest. As a Fred Williamson fan, Mean Johnny Barrows is a let down and a bummer. Even though some of his films are of shoddy quality, Fred Williamson is a really cool and bad ass dude. His finer qualities don't save this stinker and I would advise interested parties to skip this one.

Great cast with many familiar faces and great story line!!!! I have been binge watching 70's flicks and this is a good find!

Fred Williamson is a charismatic actor but he shouldn't be allowed behind the camera for the simple reason that he has no clue as how to direct a film. I had heard that his earlier films were better than the direct-to-vid films he slapped together in the '80s but this film, made just as the blaxploitation craze was winding down, is beyond belief.

I'd like to think that he had a crew of 5 people: 2 for sound, one high school student to do the lighting, an A.D., and himself...oh yeah, I guess he'd need a cameraman. Well maybe one of the actors handled that when they weren't needed in front of the camera. That might explain a lot. This is, technically, a truly horrible film: the sound, lighting, camera are all beyond amateur.

What really takes the cake is the inclusion of good actors like Roddy McDowell, Elliot Gould (as one reviewer noted below -- this is the best scene and it makes no sense but is welcome anyway) and Stuart Whitman. Were these actors behind in their car payments? If you want good blaxploitation and you like Williamson, check out "Bucktown" or "Black Caesar" or any of the early '70s films he starred in before he thought he knew how to direct. This is an embarrassment to all the cast and crew (except for Gould who is hilarious!).

I'd love to hear from a crew member who worked on this dreck. I'm sure it was a nightmare.

I can't say that this film was any good. There isn't much to be said about the plot, acting, direction ... anything, really. I like Fred Williamson, but "Mean Johnny Barrows" certainly isn't the high water mark in his resume.

That being said ... the scene with Williamson and Elliott Gould was, I thought, really touching. Not necessarily in the context of the movie itself ... but I couldn't help but notice that probably 95% of that scene was improvised by both Williamson and Gould. As I understand it, both men became friends while filming Robert Altman's "M*A*S*H," and I suspect that Gould probably did the "Professor" role as a favor to his friend Williamson.

The scene is set in the first act of the movie and is relatively short ... I'd say about three or four minutes in length. It doesn't add any sort of perspective to the plot at all. It probably could have been cut from the film altogether, were it not for Elliott Gould's namesake.

Anyhow ... Gould's "Professor" character attempts to educate Williamson's "Barrows" on how a bum ought to live. The two find a clueless man ordering a hot dog and root beer from a street vendor. After a little smooth talking from Gould, he entices the "man with the popsicle shirt" to purchase "a couple dogs with some kraut" for he and Williamson. This scene is totally improvised by both men, leaving the other poor guy in stitches. And in the context of the movie, Williamson's "Barrows" would probably not be laughing it up and saying things like "shall we?" unless he was completely intoxicated or some other way out of his element. I suppose it was refreshing to see these two "old friends" having a good time NOT taking themselves or the scene too seriously.

It's probably pretty silly, but that scene really tickled me. I'm a huge admirer of Elliott Gould's earlier work, but until the moment I saw him on screen, I had no idea he was in this movie. It was a nice surprise. Made this movie a little more palatable. Though I suppose I've seen worse movies by comparison, I doubt that "Mean Johnny Barrows" is a feather in either Fred Williamson's or Elliott Gould's cap.

I wanted to see this movie, Williamson's debut as a director, because I have long suspected that Williamson once knew how to make an action movie (at least Blaxploitation style) and later got bored and started directing filler.

Well, I was wrong - Williamson was a bad director from the get go.

The problem with most of his films - including this one - is that one has a right to expect action from an action film, even if it has some other comment to make. Williamson's action scenes are invariably dull, routine, cliché, and not very frequent.

When I see a character in an action film pull out a gun, I expect him to shoot something or somebody - not just stand around posing as if just holding a gun was in itself exciting - one might as well hold a broom.

But as in most Williamson-directs-Williamson films, when the gun comes out... he stands and, well... just stands there.

An off-beat Elliot Gould performance slips through - otherwise, noting much here. And Landau is at his worst, which is just what Mr. Williamson wanted from him - what a waste of time! Don't let it waste yours.

Either I have been misinterpreting and misusing the word "mean" throughout my entire life, or this movie's title is completely misleading. Fred Williamson's title character, Johnny Barrows, is about everything but mean in this movie. He's dull, and incredibly indecisive citizen who remains frustratingly honorable even though life is repeatedly stabbing him in the back. Barrows is a decorated Vietnam veteran, but after his discharge from the army (for righteously punching a superior in the face) he quickly becomes homeless, unemployed and has to start digging for food in garbage bins. His mafia buddy Mario Racconi offers him a job as hit man numerous times, especially since a rival clan moved into their territory, but Johnny Barrows prefers to clean toilets at a gas station for $21 per month because that's an honest profession. Yeah right. Only one full hour and one dead godfather later, Johnny finally gets a bit mean and accepts the job to protect a woman who doesn't even fancy him. The film ends with the message: "this movie is dedicated to all veterans who traded the front line for the unemployment line". Oh, okay, so this is an attempt at social criticism? Let me assure you there are numerous of gritty and violent 70's movies out there dealing with re-integration issues of Vietnam veterans, and practically all of them are better than "Mean Johnny Barrows". This is just a boring Fred Williamson vehicle, his directorial debut by the way, with only a couple of notable moments in the last fifteen minutes. Roddy McDowell's role is hardly worth mentioning and Elliot Gould merely just makes a cameo.

Slightly better than average Blaxploitation type film, somewhat more interesting due to cameo from Elliot Gould. Roddy McDowall is also a familiar face (best remembered, at last by me, for Planet of the Apes series). Otherwise plot is paper thin and the few action scenes are mediocre. This is only worth a view for "deep tracks" 70s film buffs (like me) or those interested in the Blaxploitation genre (although this one is kind of on the border of the genre). For anyone else, it's not worth your time at all, the movie is not gripping at all and instantly forgettable.

Though marketed as your typical 1970s blaxploitation vehicle, this film is essentially a character study about Johnny Barrows (Fred Williamson), a dishonorably discharged ex-GI who returns home to Los Angeles and finds it very hard to adjust back to civilian life. With no money or job, Johnny wanders in and out of soup kitchens and strikes a brief friendship with a rather dapper tramp (special appearance by Williamson's MASH co-star Elliott Gould) who teaches Johnny how to survive on the streets.

The second half of the movie has more of an action plot where Mafia boss Tony (Stuart Whitman) hires Johnny to be a hit man to wipe out a rival crime family in the city, but things spiral out of control in the process, when an old enemy, looking for revenge, resurfaces to rub Johnny out. Despite the unlikely cast and routine script, Williamson handles the material decently.

This is a somewhat atypical role for Fred Williamson; usually he plays a cop, or a bounty hunter, or just a general all-around badass who is always on top of every situation, but here he is a homeless, jobless Vietnam veteran who almost has to resort to eating out of garbage cans, is exploited by other people and, finally, forced to remember the killer instincts that got him a silver star in the army, when he gets involved in a war between two Mafia families (those are rather typical). Despite a plodding first half, the film is mildly interesting. I mean, at least it keeps your attention until the downbeat ending - and the unbelievable, in every sense of the word, last-second "twist". Fred, however, should NEVER do fight scenes, he just looks really clumsy in them. The cast also includes the cutie Jenny Sherman, Roddy McDowall sporting in one scene the fakest fake leg in the history of cinema, and Elliott Gould - for about 2 minutes. (**)

OK. Just had to put in a comment that those who speak English would fully understand. I don't know about you, but I don't know what "one mean of a dull movie" means. It's a shame when people don't bother to use the language correctly- the other reviewer seems fairly smart in other ways.

This is a dull movie, I grant you. I have it as part of a 4-DVD set called, "Mean Muthas & Bad Brothas." Or maybe it's the other way around. I'm not sure - I bought the set of four movies for 4.98. And it was well worth that. The cheapest I've ever seen of a notoriously cheap genre, this film is slow, barely coherent and full of things that don't make sense. On the other hand,it has Fred Williamson (and was apparently directed by him), Roddy McDowall (playing a Fredo-type, actually a pretty out-of-body performance, it was surprising to realize it was him, although I was looking for him) and Elliot Gould in a very strange but brief "special appearance" as a homeless yet extremely dapper fellow. Hey whatever - it's an incredibly bad blaxploitation film. If that sounds funny to you and you don't spend much money, go for it.

A dishonorably discharged Vietnam vet soon finds himself homeless and unemployed on the streets of Los Angeles. He gets a job offer from a mobster to wipe out another mob family. Not a thought-provoking premise, but one that could have delivered some action and excitement. But the movie is anything but action-packed and exciting. Our hero doesn't take the mob boss' job offer until more than an hour of the running time has passed! And when he does start delivering business, it's not very compelling - it's as if director Williamson was determined to make all this "action" as slow and boring as the first hour of the movie. The movie looks okay for what was a poverty-row budget, and Williamson in front of the camera has some charisma, but that's nowhere enough to save the movie. And why does the title card of the movie claim the hero is named "Johnny Barrows" when a badge the hero wears in the beginning of the movie states he's named "Johnnie Barrows"?

Mean Johnny Barrows is one mean a dull of a film.

Basically it tells the story of Johnny Barrows, a former soldier who gets booted out of the army for striking an officer.

As he returns to his hometown, he gets mugged and robbed and therefore, he is left penniless.

Determined to start his life up again, he goes around looking for a job. There, he works at a garage and meets up with this chick called Nancy.

However, prior to his job, he gets recruited by Mario Racconi when he gets gunned down by the Da Vinci family following a truce that went wrong.

Determined to take on the job, Johnny goes round bumping off each member of the Da Vinci family until he reaches a climatic end putting a full scale on them with a double-barrelled shot gun.

Well afterwards, what happens..? Someone puts a contract out on him. But who..?

Well, it comes to show with a classic film like this, there are some good moments as well as bad. A good cast though, even Fred Williamson directed this flick.

Not bad, but after all it is one mean of a dull film!

...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 .