Robert Downey Jr. is currently experiencing a late-career renaissance, the likes of which has never before been seen in Hollywood. An amazing heel-turn that has seen him go from bottoming-out addict to A-list megastar, he is crushing it on screen in everything from “The Avengers” to “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.” But way back in 1988, he was tasked with perhaps his greatest acting challenge: Playing second fiddle to an jocked-out Anthony Michael Hall in a little football comedy called “Johnny Be Good.” Now, most guys with Downey’s talent would have seen this as beneath them and simply phoned it in, but RDJ did something else entirely. Fueled, we assume, by a heady cocktail of boredom and L.A.’s finest foreign imports, he dug a little deeper and chose a different route.
He decided to pretend he was in an entirely different movie from everyone else.
It’s a marvel to watch. Everyone else is going through the paces of a standard boobs ‘n’ beer comedy the likes of which has kept cable alive since its infancy – but Downey is on another planet altogether.
Case in point, this is the first time we see him in the film:
Those pupils could be donated to science.
Everyone else in this scene is playing it as written – a high school football coach is delivering a pre-game prayer followed by a rousing, “Let’s win it all” speech. Downey, however, imagines his sadsack backup QB is in a Southern revival meeting, responding to the question, “Who wants it?” with a bug-eyed, borderline orgasmic, barely intelligible “I … I …” looking like he’s about to be taken up in The Rapture.
That kicks off an opening credit montage of “the big game,” which Downey treats as though his character has been raised in a small European village and is only experiencing the game of American football for the first time now.
Yes, there he is, having inexplicably wandered away from the bench to grab a drink on the concourse. Note, he had not been wearing his helmet at all up until this point, but decides NOW to put it on. And then he attempts to drink through it.
Bonus! This is a rare moment capturing Roberts Downeys Jr. and Sr. in the same frame! It might explain what’s happening, since the last time they shared the screen it was something like this:
No wonder Jr. is becoming unhinged.
After Johnny Football gets the team up to a comfortable 52-0 lead, he fakes an injury so his good friend RDJ can get some playing time.
Bug-eyed, he stares at his teammates and mutters, “You go left. You go right. I’ll run.” As if he were a recently drugged alien attempting to converse with a cocker spaniel.
Downey, whose character’s name is Leo, takes the snap and starts running the wrong way. Well, “running” may not be the most accurate term. Sashay? Jeté? There has to be some other way to describe the prancing woodland nymph dance Downey decides to break into. Again, in the movie playing in RDJ’s head, Leo was raised by a Jedi hologram of Bob Fosse.
They win! Cue the shower celebration, meant to show the exuberance of youth and the glory of athletic competition. This being the ’80s, it also meant cheerleaders being thrown to the jocks like strips of sirloin. Once again, Downey’s Leo has veered away from “raucous shower party” and believes he may actually be involved in a prison assault.
Does he have her in a sleeper hold? What is he doing? Please note that the cheerleader/actress is clearly laughing in this scene and is not blinking an SOS to the director to yell cut. As far as we can tell.
When next we see Leo, he and Johnny are driving home from the game and we get the first of what will be three – count ’em, THREE – utterly insane monologues from beyond reality that Downey appears to be making up on the spot.
They have absolutely nothing to do with the story, and they grind the plot to a halt. But clearly the director kept rolling on these flights of fancy because he knew he’d need evidence some day. They are a marvel of rambling nonsense and need to be seen to be believed and appreciated.
Meanwhile, back in the movie “Johnny Be Good” …
Johnny and Leo go to Johnny’s house for a quaint post-game dinner with Johnny’s adorable family. His kid brother, kid sister, sassy single mom and lovable old gramps are all there.
When kid sis asks, “Why don’t you ever eat at your house, Leo?” most well-adjusted comedy sidekick characters would retort with a snarky one-liner like, “My mom only cooks cereal” or “Your mom defrosts chicken better than anyone in town.” Not so, RDJ. No, no … he instead glares at the little girl – who is, like, seven years old, FYI – with a black-eyed, murderous fury before telling her: “Basically, it’s because my parents HATE me. And they’ve accused me of carrying an ammonia-filled tentacle around with me … which of course I DO NOT!” He then threatens the little scamp with a knife, leans his head back, and does this …
Once again, we need to point out that none of the other characters are in a psychological horror film at this point.
The “ammonia-filled tentacle” line isn’t just horrifying to throw at a child right after they’ve eaten, by the way, it’s a line Downey has thrown around in interviews before – further proof that his entire role here was spilling out of his own head with no filter. Scripts? Where we’re going we don’t need scripts.
And now, a slight detour into meta WTF-ery. During the scene at the drive-in movie theater, Robert Downey Sr.’s character sits in a car watching a movie that was directed by … Robert Downey Sr.
It’s a clip from Downey Sr.’s cult film “Putney Swope,” and it shows a young couple frolicking in a sun-soaked, pastoral setting. The boy then starts singing to the girl, crooning the line, “when I saw your beaver flesh/I’ll never be the same…”
Like Jr.’s performance, this is completely out of context, and relates to nothing else in the film. Clearly both Downeys are up to something.
Anyway, a lot of non-Downey-related things happen … blah blah blah football blah blah blah corruption blah blah blah margaritas … and then Johnny returns home and immediately goes to an old fashioned barber shop with Leo. Turns out, their asshole coach is there! When Coach Hissler (played by Greatest Cinematic Asshole Ever, Paul Gleason) tells Leo to shut his trap, RDJ responds with – what else – the world’s most baffling middle finger.
The form, the delivery, the face … it’s all so wrong and yet … so, so right.
And then – conflict! Leo wants Johnny to visit a football school in California, but Johnny doesn’t want to! Does Leo embark on an elaborate scheme to trick Johnny into boarding a flight to Cali? Does he promise to take care of Johnny’s goldfish while he’s away (only for it all to go disastrously, hilariously wrong?) If this were a standard comedy romp, maybe. But instead, RDJ threatens to commit suicide with a toy gun.
And it works. Johnny’s on the next flight. Because you don’t mess with crazy.
When next we see Leo, he’s launching into Outer Limits Monologue #2 … this one closing with an impromptu jazz-scat-like song about how Johnny needs to attend the Cali football factory UCC.
Just think, someone actually had to sit there and go, “Cut! OK, we’re good. Moving on.”
Turns out, the girls who randomly drive up and offer Johnny and Leo sex aren’t nympho unicorns, but have actually been paid to drag Johnny and Leo to a motel to frame them for assault. Again, in a normal comedy, the boys might be suspicious, maybe a little comically over-eager, maybe a little unexpectedly shy.
Nope.
Downey – who remains in this pose for most of the time – delivers INSANE MONOLGUE #3 which is, by far, the greatest of the lot. It involves domestic violence and asparagus-flavored urine. Here it is transcribed, in case you want to have it cross-stitched onto a throw pillow:
“By the way, where is the can, I have to take a horrible, putrid, asparagus piss. He says, ‘Down the hall to the left.’ Well, that just really ticked me off so I got up and I said, ‘Just wait a goddamn minute, that won’t do.’ I run right up the family drapes and proceed to write my surname on them in urine. Well, mom bolts out of the La-Z-Boy chair and comes over and delivers me a flurry, flurry of slaps. So I retaliate with a series of blows to her midriff and midsection, that I usually reserve only for those time when I actually do see red.”
This has ceased to become a movie. This is RDJ performance art.
The boys get framed and sent to jail, where they are told they can be bailed out if Johnny agrees to play for the Evil Richie School (patent pending). While in prison, a shirtless and oddly gleaming RDJ (Seriously, do Ohio prisons require everyone in their holding cells to be slathered in baby oil?) seems, for the first time, completely calm, mannered, in his element and, dare we say, normal.
This is 1988 RDJ, after all, and prison bars must have smelled like home cooking to him.
While Johnny’s story continues (blah blah blah life lessons blah blah blah education), thus concludes the story of Leo, the singe greatest cinematic achievement of Robert Downey Jr.’s career. Never again would he be allowed to subvert convention, flaunt storytelling rules, or, well, snort an entire catering truck with such abandon ever again in pursuit of his art. That last part, clearly, has been for the best.
Well done, sir.
