The fact that it's not a very good spoof is beside the point. It tries, and for its first thirty minutes or so it succeeds.
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Movies and radio in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s were filled with Johnny's: Johnny Allegro, Johnny Angel, Johnny Apollo, Johnny Dark, Johnny Dollar, Johnny Eager, Johnny Holiday, Johnny O'Clock, Johnny Valentine; the list goes on and on, and most of them were either crime fighters or gangsters. Obviously, the field was ripe for parody when this 1984 spoof came along about a mob boss named Johnny Kelly, aka Johnny Dangerously. The fact that it's not a very good spoof is beside the point. It tries, and for its first thirty minutes or so it succeeds.
The director is Amy Heckerling, who has had pretty much a hit-and-miss career in films. On the one hand she's responsible for "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" and "Clueless"; on the other hand she's made "National Lampoon's European Vacation" and the "Look Who's Talking" series. I've never found any of her films especially funny, but they've often been enormously popular. "Johnny Dangerously" can't even make that claim, being one of her more-modest box-office outings.
The star of the show is Michael Keaton, who was coming off a winning performance in "Night Shift" a couple of years earlier but was still a few years away from "Beetlejuice" and "Batman." His time would come, but it wasn't quite yet. He plays the lead, a nice, sweet, jaunty fellow named Johnny Kelly, who in flashbacks to 1910 and 1930 tells the story of his life in crime to a young thief he nabs in his pet shop. Keaton may be at the core of the film's problem, though, not quite knowing how he wants to play the part. He could have done it seriously tongue-in-cheek, but instead he plays it with a wink and nod, a perennial choirboy even when he's supposed to be the big, bad head of the city's top crime syndicate. It's hard to take his character seriously (for laughs) when Keaton himself doesn't appear to take the part seriously. He's supposed to be tough and intimidating, but he's always far from it, and the comic idea of a goody-two-shoes bad boy only goes so far. Worse, while Keaton invests the part with a requisite vigor, he has almost no good lines to rely on.
Anyway, he tells the tale of his involvement with crime: how as a boy he saved the life of a notorious big-time mobster named Dundee; how he joined the gang and changed his name from Kelly to Dangerously; how he rose quickly in the chain of command; how he became so famous in his neighborhood, they started selling t-shirts with his name on them; how he fell in love; how he handled a rival mobster and a rival mob; and how he decided finally to call it quits with iniquity and open a pet shop. It's quite a lot for one story to cover, which is yet another of the film's weaknesses because it never sticks with anything for very long.
In fact, the movie is left to the supporting cast to carry it through, and it's here the picture sparkles. The supporting players are terrific. Unfortunately, none of them has more than a good bit or two here and there, or the movie might have succeeded far beyond what it does. First and foremost is Joe Piscopo as Danny Vermin, a new member of the Dundee gang and a thorough rat. Piscopo, fresh from his success on "Saturday Night Live," plays his part with a devilish bravado; maybe it's just that villains are often more interesting than heroes in films, but I thought he stole the show. He's got an 88-magnum handgun so big "it shoots through schools." Next is Peter Boyle, no stranger to villainous roles, playing the aging head hood, Dundee. If you liked him in "Young Frankenstein," you'll like him here, although he has far less to do. The always watchable Maureen Stapleton plays Ma Kelly, Johnny's mother, a wonderfully sweet-appearing but foulmouthed lady who is indirectly responsible for Johnny's going into crime. Seems she has a new ailment every ten minutes that needs a desperate operation, and in the days of the Great Depression, only crime paid.
Next is Marilu Henner as Lil, the nightclub singer Johnny falls for. Then, there's Griffin Dunne as Tommy, Johnny's younger brother who becomes the Assistant DA and has to bring Johnny in. Among the smaller roles are Glynnis O'Connor as Sally, Tommy's longtime fiancée; Dom DeLouise as the Pope (yes, THE Pope); Danny DeVito as Winston Burr, the corrupt District Attorney; Ray Walston as a news vendor who keeps getting hit on the head with bundles of newspapers and losing and regaining his hearing and sight and memory; ex-linebacker Dick Butkus as Arthur, one of Dundee's drivers and bodyguards; Alan Hale, Jr., as a police desk sergeant; Bob Eubanks as an MC; Jack Nance as a priest; Ron Carey as a doorman; and I'd swear Jonathan Winters as a corpse, but if so he's uncredited. As I said, a great crew to work with.
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