I like to think of it as "the Goofy effect." It is when all the characters in a movie seem to talk and sound and act alike, like in the old Disney cartoons where Goofy played every single character. Even when it is done well, like in a Robert Altman movie where everyone usually natters in a similar semi-low voiced chatter about trivial things or in a Woody Allen movie where everyone tends to expound with the sophisticated cynical wit of a "New Yorker" arts review, it can get to be just a little bit annoying. It's not so bad in those films, because it usually underscores the comic intent of the dialogue. However, too often it is used to reinforce a cultural stereotype (southern bigots, poor blacks, middle-class Jews, etc.) even when such a stereotype isn't necessarily real.
In JOHNS, a film about street level male prostitutes, everyone speaks with a "Hey man, how's it hangin', man? What the f---'s happen, you m.....f....., man?" And so on. Well, some of them add a little bit of swishy oh-so homosexual lisp to the pronunciation, but basically it is as though all the hustlers took the same Berlitz course on how to sound like you are savvy to the sounds of the lean streets of Los Angeles. It would seem to me that the story would be better told by stressing just how different these guys are. Instead, the point of the film seems to be that they are awfully alike. Even the man character played by David Arquette is named John and he keeps running into other characters named John, some of whom are his johns.
Other than to deny the characters any sort of complexity, it is difficult to see just what the point of JOHNS is. I can't say the film has any great sympathy for the characters, even as it rather smugly traps them all in an atmosphere of impending doom. Resolutely downbeat, JOHNS not-so-subtly makes it clear that someone is going to die by the end of the film and the only suspense springs from trying to guess who. Is it Arquette as the optimistically foolish John or Lukas Haas as his foolishly optimistic friend, Donner? Let's just say that as soon as one of the characters starts talking about scoring one last john before he retires from prostitution forever, he might as well just crawl into a body bag because his fate is sealed.
Arquette's John spends Christmas Eve trying to hustle up or steal enough money to pay back $300 he has stolen from a drug dealer and to get quite a bit more so that he can spend Christmas Day, his birthday, in a luxury hotel. The Christmas angle and the suggestion that John is some sort of a Jesus figure hangs uneasily over the story like the pretentious subtext of a bad play. Indeed, the film's theatrical nature never quite jibes with its desire to seem street wise, leaving it all seemingly artificial and empty. And despite the milieu, the film isn't explicit on any level, having no nudity, only implied sex and even the violence is off screen. It is a remarkably timid film about a remarkably lurid subject.
As dull wittedly predictable as the film is, it is worth seeing just for the actors. Elliott Gould, John C. McGinley and Arliss Howard have their moments as various customers who pass through, and Haas' geeky charm serves him well as a teen whose been kicked out by his father for announcing that he is gay. But it is Arquette's film and, though he gives a very good performance, he isn't helped much by a shallow script by writer/director Scott Silver. Though he is the central character, we learn very little about John, other than that he is homeless, he identifies himself as being straight, he's not too bright and, well, that's about it. John is less a reality than a generic example. It says something when a filmmaker resorts to generic labels to identify his film and his characters. This John doesn't get a lot of respect, least of all from the film itself.
In JOHNS, a film about street level male prostitutes, everyone speaks with a "Hey man, how's it hangin', man? What the f---'s happen, you m.....f....., man?" And so on. Well, some of them add a little bit of swishy oh-so homosexual lisp to the pronunciation, but basically it is as though all the hustlers took the same Berlitz course on how to sound like you are savvy to the sounds of the lean streets of Los Angeles. It would seem to me that the story would be better told by stressing just how different these guys are. Instead, the point of the film seems to be that they are awfully alike. Even the man character played by David Arquette is named John and he keeps running into other characters named John, some of whom are his johns.
Other than to deny the characters any sort of complexity, it is difficult to see just what the point of JOHNS is. I can't say the film has any great sympathy for the characters, even as it rather smugly traps them all in an atmosphere of impending doom. Resolutely downbeat, JOHNS not-so-subtly makes it clear that someone is going to die by the end of the film and the only suspense springs from trying to guess who. Is it Arquette as the optimistically foolish John or Lukas Haas as his foolishly optimistic friend, Donner? Let's just say that as soon as one of the characters starts talking about scoring one last john before he retires from prostitution forever, he might as well just crawl into a body bag because his fate is sealed.
Arquette's John spends Christmas Eve trying to hustle up or steal enough money to pay back $300 he has stolen from a drug dealer and to get quite a bit more so that he can spend Christmas Day, his birthday, in a luxury hotel. The Christmas angle and the suggestion that John is some sort of a Jesus figure hangs uneasily over the story like the pretentious subtext of a bad play. Indeed, the film's theatrical nature never quite jibes with its desire to seem street wise, leaving it all seemingly artificial and empty. And despite the milieu, the film isn't explicit on any level, having no nudity, only implied sex and even the violence is off screen. It is a remarkably timid film about a remarkably lurid subject.
As dull wittedly predictable as the film is, it is worth seeing just for the actors. Elliott Gould, John C. McGinley and Arliss Howard have their moments as various customers who pass through, and Haas' geeky charm serves him well as a teen whose been kicked out by his father for announcing that he is gay. But it is Arquette's film and, though he gives a very good performance, he isn't helped much by a shallow script by writer/director Scott Silver. Though he is the central character, we learn very little about John, other than that he is homeless, he identifies himself as being straight, he's not too bright and, well, that's about it. John is less a reality than a generic example. It says something when a filmmaker resorts to generic labels to identify his film and his characters. This John doesn't get a lot of respect, least of all from the film itself.