Henry Johnson (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

Henry Johnson

HENRY JOHNSON (2025)

Starring Evan Jonigkeit, Shia LaBeouf, Chris Bauer, Dominic Hoffman and Ari Basile.

Screenplay by David Mamet.

Directed by David Mamet.

Distributed by 1993 Productions. 85 minutes. Not Rated.

David Mamet was arguably the best dramatic playwright of the last century (as well as a fantastic screenwriter), but his work in the new millennium has been more problematic.

Mamet always specialized in the crackling, hyperactive, profane bursts of smart and realistic dialogue of society’s winners and… more importantly… the losers. He took Broadway by storm with such plays as American Buffalo, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed-the Plow and Oleanna.

The film world quickly took notice. All of the above titles other than Speed-the-Plow were eventually adapted as movies. (Sexual Perversity in Chicago was renamed About Last Night in its film incarnation.) He quickly became a favorite screenwriter-for-hire, penning such Hollywood classics as The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Verdict, The Untouchables, Hoffa and Wag the Dog. By the late 1980s, Mamet stepped behind the cameras, writing and directing such cult favorites as House of Games, Things Change, Homicide, The Spanish Prisoner and State and Main. 

Mamet has always been fascinated with American rot; cons, criminals, and the dreams and power struggles of winners and losers.

However, In recent decades – seemingly coinciding with Mamet’s personal and political transformation into a bit of a raging neo-conservative and Trump supporter – Mamet’s writing seems to have lost its empathy for life’s losers that he had earlier showed compassion towards.

Mamet was always cynical as a writer, but that cynicism seems to have curdled to the point that it is pervasive. To quote Leonard Cohen, another sterling and rather cynical wordsmith from a different artistic pursuit; “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” No light gets through in Henry Johnson.

With Henry Johnson being released as his first film as a writer/director in over a decade, and his masterpiece Glengarry Glen Ross back on Broadway yet again in its third splashy revival, perhaps it is a suitable time to look at the changes in Mamet’s writing and perspective over the decades.

Because Henry Johnson shows that Mamet still has an amazing ear for dialogue. In certain sections of this film the dialogue is stunning – and it is essentially a filmed version of his 2023 play which is made up almost entirely of talk. In fact, this is only the second time which Mamet has directed a film version of one of his own plays, following Oleanna (1994), which was an imperfect movie, but the movie (and play) was shockingly prescient in their predictions of the pros and cons of the coming #MeToo movement.

However, despite the sometimes shockingly good dialogue, and extremely fine acting by a small troupe of actors, including Mamet’s son-in-law Evan Jonigkeit, Shia LaBeouf, Chris Bauer and Dominic Hoffman, it is often hard to look at Henry Johnson with any real human connection. I’d expect this all worked a lot better on stage than it does in a film.

Henry Johnson is very basic filmmaking. Four scenes. Four characters. Three locations. Two characters speak in each section. And frankly, most of these conversations were essentially monologues with one character driving the discussion and the other one just occasionally interjecting. (A fifth character is seen in the background periodically, but while she is a subject of one of the conversations, I don’t recall her getting any dialogue.)

The title character (Jonigkeit) is the only person in all of the scenes, and yet in a way he was the least important member of each of his talks. Because Henry Johnson is the dupe, the loser, the man being handed a line of bull by others who were using him – grooming him, in the film’s parlance – for their own purposes. They seem to be trying to help Henry stand up for himself, but they are just playing power games with him. And no matter how often he was mistreated, Henry just keeps coming back and believing them.

Back in the Glengarry days, Mamet also looked at these kind of power dynamics. Hell, any one of the other characters in this film would have sounded natural reciting the “Coffee is for closers” monologue from the film version of Glengarry. However, as much as Mamet was fascinated by slick Glengarry top-seller Ricky Roma (originally played by Joe Mantegna on stage and Al Pacino on film), the story revolved around the aging loser Shelly Levene (Robert Prosky in the original cast, Jack Lemmon in the film). Even though he was desperate and pathetic, left behind in a world that was much harder than he was – Mamet obviously felt some compassion for him.

Henry Johnson is also desperate, pathetic and left behind. Mamet seems to know it – to feel it. However, he does not seem to feel much sympathy for the guy. Asshole deserves what he gets for allowing everyone around him to use him. Henry Johnson appears to be an avatar for Mamet’s current world view; the world is a shitty place, and somebody has to be crapped on – better him than me.

Still, no matter how heavy-handed it sometimes can be, the dialogue and acting are good enough to make it worth seeing. Henry Johnson is a very dark ride, and yet you have to admit that it is constructed in style.

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2025 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: May 8, 2025.