Mister Johnson (1990)

The Worst Film Ever

Really Surprised!

Crappy film

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

When I bought this item, I really was not aware of what I was dealing with...Except it was a Bruce Beresford film, and also it took place somewhere in Africa, in the beginning of the twentieth century, and starring Pierce Brosnan.During the first half hour, I wondered what the screenplay drove at? I felt some boredom, but fortunately I found the real quality of this vivid story. I won't tell it again, the other comments were fine about it. It's worth watching. The only point I'd like to say it's that the character of Mister Johnson reminds me somewhere TOM HORN's one, starring Steve mac Queen, a man torn between two entities - MacQueen, the landowners who hired him to get rid of the settlers at all costs and the law; and Mister Johnson's actor who hesitates between his own people and the British "masters" he admired so much, these people he wanted so much to be like them, so much he felt himself British inside of him. Two characters who finish crushed at the end, and nearly in the same way. Just because of their convictions and engagement.I don't regret to have watched this film. No folks.

The title character in Bruce Bereford's film is a native clerk in British West Africa (circa 1923), who becomes alienated from his own people after ingratiating himself with his English masters. He likes to say he's a true English gentleman in his heart, but the color of his skin tells a different story, and for all his delusions of civilized grandeur he can't see that a civil servant is, by any other name, still a servant. There's much to admire here: clearly a lot of care and attention went into the film. But although it captures superbly the heat and light of the African veldt, the story is surprisingly dark, despite Bereford's best efforts to minimize the discomfort of his audience. The servant Johnson is made to seem entirely innocent of any wrongdoing (even after being totally corrupted by colonial British culture), and his white overlords are, likewise, not portrayed with any ambivalence. Up to a point, at any rate: Pierce Brosnan's final, chilling act of grace isn't likely to send moviegoers home in an upbeat frame of mind.

The cinematography was truly lovely, it's natural colors blended with the story telling so thoroughly, I sat in the dark fascinated by this syncopation. The film has a huge cast, and filming in the African sun, it had to be a difficult. I loved the talent. Every character was real.I loved the story --the collision of two cultures at the beginning.Most of all I love the character of Mister Johnson as portrayed by Maynard Eziashi. His behavior seemed typical of the era. And African villagers seemed so gentle and accepting of foreign intrusion. Maybe it was that way in the beginning.Joyce Cary wrote a very sweet, sort of tragic story. I wish all films contained this truth, warmth and humanity.

Every so often you come across a film that is so accurate in it's depiction of life and the character of the people you forget it's a movie and it takes you to that place in time and you become one of the people, Mister Johnson is that film plus 100. Mister Johnson is an accurate look into the life of a man who is torn between the color of his heritage and his longing to be an English gentleman. Mister Johnson is a man who forgets his ethnic heritage and calls his own people ''ignorant'' and ''savage'' but holds the people who treat his with the lowest respect, namely the British officials and colonists in the highest honor. He is an example of the brainwashing given to many many people of color over the centuries by the Whites, making them forget who they are, where they came from, and making them have an alien thirst for white culture. But Mister Johnson is more than that..oh yes indeed. He is a crafty little man who's high intelligence gets him into trouble with the British offocials. He has a thirst for english traditions and a longing for the white man's riches and acceptance but I do not believe he even knows why. This is a great film depicting the harsh life of a man too smart for his own good in a time where his skin color and an intellect that large was the biggest threat in the mind of white colonists. Sadly this film leaves you wanting more, wanting a deeper look into how Mister Johnson came to be they way he is.