After being double crossed and thrown in jail, a deformed gangster gets a new face and rehabilitation, but his desire for revenge looms.
Johnny Handsome is a deformed gangster who plans a successful robbery with a friend of his, Mikey Chalmette, and another couple (Sunny Boid and Rafe Garrett). During the heist, Johnny and Mikey are double-crossed by Sunny and Rafe---Mikey is killed and Johnny sent to prison. While in prison, Johnny is invited to a rehabilitation program, where Dr. Steven Fischer rebuilds Johnny's face and helps Johnny get paroled. Johnny starts working in a shipyard, where he meets Donna McCarty and starts a romance. Lt. A.Z. Drones is a skeptical detective who follows the rehabilitation of Johnny. Johnny's new life is consumed by the desire of payback.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
For old times' sake, Johnny agrees to help his only friend, Mikey, stay in the game. Of course, instead of gratitude, Johnny takes the rap for a bloody robbery and gets five years behind bars. As Johnny gets an unexpected new lease of life and a squeaky-clean fresh start, the nagging desire to get even with the past threatens Johnny's last chance at going straight. And with the law breathing down his neck, mistakes are bound to happen. Once, he was a nobody waiting for a miracle. Now, he is a somebody ready to blow it in the name of revenge. With the ghost of betrayal looming over his miserable existence, will anyone ever miss Johnny Handsome, the fool with good looks?—Nick Riganas
A career criminal who has been deformed since birth is given a new face by a kindly doctor and paroled from prison. It appears that he has gone straight, but he is really planning his revenge on the man who killed his father-figure and sent him to prison.—Mark Logan <[email protected]>
Petty career crook John Sedley (Mickey Rourke) is called Johnny Handsome because of his deformed face. His knack for observing and planning gets him and his friend into a robbery of a collectable coin store with Sunny Boyd (Ellen Barkin) and Rafe Garrett (Lance Henriksen) but the job goes sideways. Rafe and Sunny double cross the others killing everyone else in the job but Johnny. Johnny goes to jail and is warned that since this is his second time convicted for a felony, the next time makes him a third-time loser and he will be given the maximum sentence. In jail Johnny is accosted and knifed by two other inmates and sent to the hospital where he is visited by Lt. A.Z. Drones (Morgan Freeman) who tells him that Rafe paid to have him killed and urges Johnny to give evidence to take him down. While Johnny recuperates an enlightened Dr. Steven Fisher (Forrest Whitaker) believes that if he can repair Johnny's cleft palette and reconstruct his face he can change his life because the world will see him in a different more positive way. Lt. Drones tears down the doctor's ideas insisting that someone who is bad will continue being bad regardless of his looks'. Johnny agrees to the medical procedures and has his impaired speech and face changed and reenters society with a parole agreeing to continue psychological observation from the doctor. Johnny gets a job on a construction crew where he meets Donna McCarty (Elizabeth McGovern) who sees something special in Johnny but he pushes her away planning his revenge on those crooks that have double crossed him. He approaches Rafe and Sunny with a job to rob the construction site and things go along fine until suspicions cause curiosity.
