Have you ever spent time with a pre schooler and they tell you a made up story? They often start with a rough premise and then keep adding to it. Everything is connected with 'and then...' as the story moves almost randomly thru its improbable arc and to a pointless end. This is what this story does. And with each 'and then' another unexplained or improbable or frankly unbelievable thing happens.

Of all the genres you can't get away with this sort of thing: it's the heist movie. Good heist movies are intricately plotted, usually with a really good twist and at the end you are left with that bittersweet realisation you've been played every bit as much as the victims in the movie.

Because Johnny Handsome starts with a betrayal of the protagonist, then adds to that betrayal, you know the story is only going in one direction. And that means everything between the opening and closing scenes is just filler. And what ridiculous stuff that filler is. For no good reason whatever, prison authorities give a hardened and violent criminal a new face and a new identity. Then they release him before he has served his time. Then they give him a good job. Then the guy does exactly what you knew he was going to do after the first few minutes of the movie. And circling in and out of the movie is Morgan Freeman, taking a break from playing Presidents and God and all round nice guys, playing a mysterious villain of a cop, who, for no reason that is explained, takes a special interest in Mickey Rourke's character. This guy not only seems not to actually have any of his own work to do, but seems to have magical powers to know exactly what is happening even before it happens. Maybe Freeman was playing a God character again.

Don't believe the revisionists who tell you this is a loving homage to noir films of another era. Nor is it the sort of post modern ironic take that later became a hallmark of guys like Tarantino. This movie is a poorly written, badly made, attempt at a movie that fails pretty much from the opening scene.