Johnny Handsome

Johnny Handsome (1989)

Genres - Drama  |   Sub-Genres - Crime Drama, Crime Thriller, Melodrama  |   Release Date - Sep 29, 1989 (USA)  |   Run Time - 94 min.  |   Countries - United States  |   MPAA Rating - R
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Synopsis by Hal Erickson

Small-time crook Mickey Rourke is mockingly named Johnny Handsome because of his grotesquely deformed face. While in stir on a robbery rap, Rourke is knifed by convicts in the employ of his former partner--and now bitter enemy--Lance Henriksen. While in the prison hospital, Rourke is cared for by a kindly doctor (Forrest Whitaker), who believes that the key to Rourke's rehabilitation might be a literal change of face. Undergoing plastic surgery, Rourke emerges as virtually unrecognizable to everyone but the audience. Paroled, Rourke seems to be willing to follow a straight and narrow path. Seems to be. Only Morgan Freeman, playing a hard-bitten law officer, sees through Rourke's "new leaf."

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Keywords

criminal, double-cross, gangster, killing, loot, mistaken-identity, parole, plastic-surgery, prison, revenge, robbery, role-switching