Johnny Handsome is a 1989 American neo-noir[2] crime thriller film directed by Walter Hill and starring Mickey Rourke, Ellen Barkin, Elizabeth McGovern, Forest Whitaker, Lance Henriksen and Morgan Freeman.

The film was written by Ken Friedman, and adapted from the novel The Three Worlds of Johnny Handsome by John Godey.

The music for the film was written, produced and performed by Ry Cooder, with four songs by Jim Keltner.

[3] John Sedley is a man with a disfigured face, mocked by others as "Johnny Handsome."

He and a friend are double-crossed by two accomplices in a crime, Sunny Boyd and her partner Rafe, and a Judge sends Johnny to jail, where he vows to get even once he gets out.

In prison, Johnny meets a surgeon named Fisher, who is looking for a guinea pig so he can attempt an experimental procedure in reconstructive cosmetic surgery.

Johnny, figuring he has nothing to lose, is given a new, normal-looking face (making him unrecognizable to the people who knew him) before he is released back into society.

Lt. Drones, a dour New Orleans law enforcement officer, is not fooled by Johnny's new look or new life, even when Johnny lands an honest job and begins seeing Donna McCarty, a normal and respectable woman who knows little of his past.

Johnny cannot forget his sworn vengeance against Sunny and Rafe, joining them for another job, which ends violently for all.

"[6] Hill added that, "No studio wanted to make it, and I didn't think any actor would be willing to play it.

[10] In 1989, Walter Hill explained why he changed his mind: First, I figured that Hollywood is based on melodrama anyway and, second, I thought up a way to present the story in a way that resisted histrionics.

The main thing is that motion pictures have conditioned us to expect psychological realism.

My own belief is that Freud may have been a brilliant thinker, but Freudianism is completely without scientific basis.

In this regard, the core of Johnny Handsome is a " a character-is-destiny story ... Maybe more than film noir, it's a tragedy.

I always thought the proper title of the movie should be, in the Elizabethan sense, The Tragedy of Johnny Handsome.

I take the view of character that has basically prevailed for about 2,000 years, up until the end of the second World War.

After the second World War, thanks to theories of modern psychology and confusion about what was scientific and what wasn't, the definition of character became much more, `How did I become what I am?'

[15]Shooting took place in November 1988 in New Orleans, where Hill had previously made Hard Times and Southern Comfort.

[7] Ellen Barkin said she wanted to play her role because her character, Sunny is one of the great female villains.

[15]Hill enjoyed working with Rourke: Mickey understood, before I had to tell him anything, how to play the part.

The casting is the most important thing you're gonna do in terms of directing the actor.

[15]"In most cases", Hill says, "producers hope for a huge American box office and treat the European market as a nice little bonus.

"[19] The soundtrack for the movie was written by Ry Cooder, with 4 of the 16 songs co-written with Jim Keltner.

The music was performed by Cooder, Keltner and Steve Douglas, with occasional horn backing, arranged by Van Dyke Parks.

In 2002, the film was finally released on DVD, but without any bonus material and was shown in only a full frame presentation.

In 2010 the film was released on Blu-ray through Lions Gate Entertainment in its original widescreen presentation.

In 2008, Slant Magazine published a review of the Mickey Rourke film The Wrestler which commented on the similarities between that and Johnny Handsome: There is a moment, early on in the film, when he staggers down the street, through a bleak New Jersey morning, a great hulk of a man, too big for his clothes.

His face looks battered and puffy, and suddenly, out of nowhere, I got an acute and clear memory of his performance as the deformed criminal in 1989's Johnny Handsome.

In the opening shots of that film, "Johnny Handsome" skulks down the street; his face has a ballooning forehead, a bulbous nose, a cleft palate.

In The Wrestler, Mickey Rourke's actual face looks like the makeup-job he had done in that movie almost 20 years ago, and it's a strange, tragic thing to contemplate.