Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

Do you or have you ever enjoyed Saturday Night Live? How about the TV series Taxi or My Favorite Martian or the Mel Brooks’ movie, Young Frankenstein? Or the movies Mr. Mom, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Clueless or Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway? If you said yes to only one of those titles, I predict there’s an excellent chance that you’ll also savor the witticism of Amy Heckerling’s underrated 1984 gangster spoof, Johnny Dangerously, with Michael Keaton, Joe Piscopo, Peter Boyle, Richard Dimitri, Griffin Dunne, Maureen Stapleton, Marilu Henner, Danny DeVito and Ray Walston. Critic Leonard Maltin dismissed it as a 90-minute ‘lame comedy,’ but is it really?

Twenty years haven’t soured the fruits of these comedic actors’ labors. I swear I’ve never seen a longer list of memorable quotes from a movie on the Internet Movie Database and I’ll just share a few of my favorites. Keep in mind that Johnny Dangerously is a tongue-in-cheek razzing of the 1920s/30s’ gangster genre and there are no misspellings.


Roman Moronie: You fargin sneaky bastage. I'm gonna take your dwork. I'm gonna nail it to the wall. I'm gonna crush your boils in a meat grinder. I'm gonna cut off your arms. I'm gonna shove 'em up your icehole. Dirty son-a-ma-batches. My own club!
Gang member: What a mouth on that guy!


Johnny Dangerously : The name's Dangerously. Johnny Dangerously.

Lil: Did you know your last name is an adverb?


Danny Vermin: You shouldn't grab me, Johnny. My mother grabbed me once... ONCE!

Roman Moronie: Why you miserable cork-sucker!


Ma Kelly: Bless the saints, it's an ashtray! I've been thinking of taking up smoking. This clinches it!


THE BASIC PLOT

The movie begins with Johnny Kelly, played to the hilt by Michael Keaton, as an adult working in a pet store. He’s feeding the masses in their cages (one new treat gets thrown back at him) and sticking security codes onto new animals (not that they would’ve done that in the Flapper era!) before catching a kid trying to steal a puppy. Kelly sits the boy down to explain why crime doesn’t pay, telling him his story of being a gangster named Johnny Dangerously.

We go back in time to when Kelly was a scrappy 12-year old paperboy who gains the attention of a New York City mobster, come to us by way of Peter Boyle. Kelly isn’t eager to turn bad, but he needs the money, exactly what the mobster is offering, for his mother’s greedy doctor to operate on the first of many made-up problems she has—and the price escalates ridiculously at the same time! With an Italian mobster who murders the English language breathing down their necks, it’s not long until our mobster gets blown up by his toilet, panicking that he's lost his manhood, and grown up Johnny takes over as boss.

This isn’t just a story of crime, however. Kelly has kept his mobster identity secret from his cantankerous mother and younger brother. After putting his brother through law school, Johnny’s problems begin when his brother becomes Assistant D.A. and won’t be satisfied until he captures Johnny Dangerously. All is not as it seems, though, and soon the brothers are fighting (even fistfighting) for each others’ lives with much hilarity.


COMMENTS

I can’t understand why critics gave this spoof so little respect. Besides the very clever dialogue, memorable running gags (fireworks exploding when Johnny’s getting laid, the “once” line by Vermin, the sex jokes aimed at Johnny’s engaged brother too priceless to mention, the Italian mobster mangling the English language, a newspaper vendor getting knocked out and much more) and the ideal, hip cast, it’s as well a story with heart...and the occasional commercial warning kids of smoking or adults of holding a red cape, hehe.

If you don’t like to be entertained with tasteful satire, not even a seductive song by Marilu Henner (“I’d Rather Live Dangerously”), and would rather see James Cagney in The Roaring Twenties as Johnny's brother does in the climax, then you’d better not bother with Johnny Dangerously. If, though, you’re like me, you should be happily giggling throughout and wanting to watch it again. The racy ending is everything you’d want it to be!

I see no reason not to award Heckerling’s flick with five stars because the vast majority of jokes are well pulled-off by endearing characters in a quickly-paced affair written by no less than four writers (Harry Colomby and Jeff Harris are two). Enjoy it today, especially if you're over the age of 12!

Other Spoofs You May Enjoy...

Mel Brooks' To Be Or Not To Be
http://www.epinions.com/content_78201458308

Casino Royale
http://www.epinions.com/content_83401805444

The Singing Detective http://www.epinions.com/content_134751620740

A Boy And His Dog
http://www.epinions.com/content_78883360388

Victor/Victoria
http://www.epinions.com/content_16746516100

Down With Love
http://www.epinions.com/content_117404110468

List of Satirical Movies
http://www.epinions.com/content_3737952388

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: VHS