Movie Review: HENRY JOHNSON

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: May 9th, 2025 / 02:55 AM

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Evan Jonigkeit, Chris Bauer, Dominic Hoffman, Shia LaBeouf
Writer: David Mamet, based on his play
Director: David Mamet
Distributor: 1993
Release Date: May 9, 2025 (theatrical, VOD)

As a playwright and a filmmaker, David Mamet sometimes includes action, but his passion is clearly for dialogue that works like a lathe, going back and forth over the same thing until it has completely shaped what he wants to form.

This is the case with HENRY JOHNSON, which Mamet directed from the screenplay he adapted from his stage play of the same name. Following a three-act structure with four total scenes, the movie takes its title character (Evan Jonigkeit) through meetings with three other men, played respectively by Chris Bauer, Shia LaBeouf, and Dominic Hoffman.

HENRY JOHNSON starts in the office of Henry’s boss, Mr. Barnes (Bauer). Henry, simultaneously persistent and unwilling to be definitive, has asked Mr. Barnes to consider employing a friend of his. Mr. Barnes is not only unwilling, he’d like to know why Henry is trying to help this friend out in the first place.

The second act and third acts have Henry interacting with the characters played by LaBeouf and Hoffman.

We don’t see protagonists like Henry very often. He is at once mild-mannered and sociopathic, but it’s not that his bland exterior is a crafty cover for a deliberately destructive interior. Instead, Henry has no discernible morality, so he really can’t comprehend when he’s outraging someone else. Furthermore, even when it’s being laid out before him, Henry can’t recognize when someone is trying to manipulate him. It’s a combination of elements that don’t normally occupy center stage together.

Jonigkeit’s excellent, agile performance makes Henry a coherent figure, and we are intrigued by what he will do and what will happen to him. We’re not precisely invested emotionally, as we’re not rooting for any specific outcome, but we remain curious throughout.

Bauer is sturdy and thoughtful, Hoffman has weary gravity, and LaBeouf embodies cynicism.

Jonigkeit, one of the film’s producers as well as its lead, has described the HENRY JOHNSON movie as a “recording” rather than an “adaptation” of the play. Even though it has full movie sets and the cinematic/editorial language of cinema, with closeups, a moving camera and other filmic accoutrements, it doesn’t attempt to open up the stage version, either narratively or physically.

Further, because Mamet chooses to let us see only so much and no more, we are left to guess at certain motives and incidents. This is especially true of what happens offscreen between the third and fourth scenes, when we’d really like to know what it is that one of the supporting characters is attempting to achieve. We understand that this is not meant to occupy our attention, but inasmuch as our interest is engaged, keeping this vague seems a bit of a cheat.

HENRY JOHNSON is designed to provoke debate as to its meaning. One reading is that it’s a depiction of how people with no convictions and not a lot of common sense can do incredible damage, sometimes because they’re easy to persuade and sometimes because they blunder into catastrophe on their own.

HENRY JOHNSON is a thorough portrait of its central figure. It is somewhat less thorough as an overall experience.

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