Mean Johnny

 

MEAN JOHNNY BARROWS-1975-Johnny Barrows (Fred Williamson) is dishonorably discharged from the army for hitting an officer. He arrives in LA and is mugged and beaten. Some racist cops arrest him thinking he's a drunk. A Sargent recognizes him as a college football player and war hero. After turning down a job offer from obvious gangster Mario Racconi (Stuart Whitman), he combs the city for a job but to no avail and sleeps in a doorway. Then he meets the Professor (Elliot Gould) and gets a job cleaning up in a gas station for the racist owner Richard (RG Armstrong). At a pow-wow mob boss Da Vince (Anthony Caruso) has his sons (Roddy McDowell and Mike Henry) kill Mario and his dad (Luther Adler) but Mario survives. When Richard cheats Johnny out of his pay Johnny tries to get it by force and is beaten up by white cops again and arrested. He gets out and Mario hires him to kill the Da Vince family. He kills both sons then has a terrible fight with an assassin who looks like Tiny Tim. Unfortunately Tony Da Vince and Mario's girlfriend Nancy (Jenny Sherman) were conspiring against both families so when Johnny tries to put the moves on her she shoots him but Johnny rigged a mine that she steps on and is blown up. 

This drawn out low budget crime drama is terrible with director/star Williamson  sleepwalking through most of the film and hardly involved in the mob family war till the last half hour.

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