juanmuscle What I love about 'Homeboy' (1988) so very much, its sweet, adorable and cute as opposed to its antithesis the quintessential puglirist Rocky which plunges the protagonist, after his crisis, into that fateful whirlwind for the Rocky series, this is no series, for there is no tripping on the lights fantastic moment, Johnny Walker is one of Rocky's stand-in beat up guys on the Champ's road to the top, but Mickey Rourke poses a wonderful question with this amazing write, 'This is still a human no? Even with his faults, does he not deserve a chance for his wonderful life?" Whether Johnny is in a band, or an artist or a plumber it does not matter, Fighting is what Mickey chose for Johnny as his vehicle to convey this universal message and ultimately transport us and finally transcend with one answer for the anti-hero Johnny Walker, yes he does, he does deserve his chance at a wonderful life! Unlike Rocky, this tale is gentle in its woebegone unfateful moment for a guy that is a descent boxer, whose biggest muscle is his heart, whose given up his cognizance for what he feels he does best, but in the wake of many a beatings he has lost enough for shiftless characters to take advantage of poor Johnny, who is one of the many lost souls who just really wants, needs to be held, who longs for the acceptance of a mother, of a father, who wants a shot at a universal give and take relationship based on love. As the tale unfolds we see the character tote the line between success and failure, good and bad, love and hate, reality and dreams unfortunately held too long which culminate to an appalling consequence held by beautiful youthful eyes fettered in a self-destructive habitude as the aging body crumbles and anon succumbs as our wayward stripling forges on with regret. Could he had been Rocky or just another has-been? But Johnny is not just another contender for his heart is his closest warrior in the biggest battles of life, to find a personal refuge. For Johnny there are no big flashy big fight sequences parlayed with big orgiastic parties, what I am saying is, there is life for the guy who is the punching bag in life and sometimes good things can happen even after a long string of unfortunate events, because sometimes its not just about winning, its about living and Eddie Cook, I feel composed one of the finest screenplays ever. Stellar in its raw simplicity. Mickeyyyyyyyyy!

Ed-Shullivan Mickey Rourke's genuine love for the sport of boxing is evident in both his writing style and in his acting as the main character in his boxing genre film Homeboy. Rourke plays a somewhat dim-witted, booze drinking, over the hill cowboy dressing boxer named Johnny Walker, whose only means of eking out a bearable living is by getting back in to the ring travelling from boxing venue to boxing venue and fighting the local 'homeboys", where the judges seem to favor the local homeboy.I believe that sometimes we the audience will see an actor portray a character that just does not seem believable on the big screen simply because the actors' previous body of work influences the audience to expect to see the actor play a similar type character as in his previous roles on camera. In the case of Mickey Rourke, we are used to seeing him play leading tough guy roles as he did earlier on his career as in his 1980's films where he was usually portrayed as the handsome leading man as in The Pope of Greenwich Village, 9 ½ Weeks, Rumble Fish or in Diner. And then Mickey chooses to write a screenplay where he portrays a dim witted over the hill booze laden boxer who falls for a carnival girl of his dreams.Mickey just shows us time and time again that he is not afraid to explore new characters (as in his Academy Award Best Actor nomination in the 2008 film, The Wrestler) and he refuses to be stereotyped in his acting roles. What I liked about the film Homeboy most was the character Johnny Walker portrayed with a quirky distorted smile that enjoyed the most simple things in life, such as hot walking the carnival ponies along the sandy beach, or just being held by his carnival girlfriend Ruby played by Debra Feuer.There are also good performances played by the seasoned actor Christopher Walken and Kevin Conway. Walken plays Wesley Pendergrass a thief with grand illusions of wealth and expensive clothes. Wesley's grifter character plays opposite Johnny Walkers poor cowboy boxer character and in some ways a comparison can be drawn towards the earlier Academy Award winning 1969 film Midnight Cowboy starring Jon Voight (Joe Buck) and Dustin Hoffman's (Ratso) characters.Kevin Conway plays a grimy cop named Grazziano who is closing in on Wesley's grifter activities and he has a soft spot for Johnny Walker's character and tells Johnny while chomping on an apple that Johnny needs to know his various types of apples and to live his own life. The audience can interpret this exchange of dialogue between Grazziano the cop and Johnny the downtrodden cowboy boxer that he should stay away from that bad apple Wesley because he is up to no good.The actual boxing scenes in the ring were not the greatest, but I understand that spending a ton of money on the movies production is better spent on building the characters (Rourke, Feuer, Walken and Conway) then it would be on spending on a few minutes of boxing choreography. The last fifteen minutes are very appealing as we see what will happen to the struggling boxer Johnny Walker, his new found grifter friend Wesley looking for that one big score, and Johnny's girlfriend Ruby who is struggling financially to hold on to her deceased fathers carnival business. Who will win and who will lose in the life battles we all face in one way or another? All in all, I liked the film and I give it a 7 out of 10 rating. If you like Mickey Rourke, and you like a gritty under achiever, then Homeboy will not disappoint you.

Well18 Horrible movie. After watching it I read that Mickey Rourke wrote it. This makes sense. Actors all want to be writers, and vice versa. Fortunatly, we don't have to see writers trying to be actors. But we do see certain actors take a stab at writing. Some actors do a great job writing films, others do a horrible job. Like Rourke. Rouke took a stab at modern boxing noir, and stabs the audience with cliché characters, and dialog that is trying for Cassevettes but is more fitting to an episode of 'Melrose Place'. Rourke is a good actor, but his acting in this film is horrendous. He proves that even if you don't say a word you can still overact. His character is completely unbelievable. He resembles a comic book palooka, has an extended chin, and walks around like he's trying to be menacing, like he's imitating some real life mean looking guy he knew once who wasn't a rich, trouble actor haunted by natural good looks; Rourke would probably give anything in the world to be a born loser with 'nothing to lose'... but then he'd never be able to write and star in films, would he? The characters around him, all having a kick with Rourke's lame dialog somehow (what else can they do?), attempt to keep things afloat. But you cannot save a sinking ship. How is it that a much lower actor, Sly Stallone, can write a ten times better boxing movie, and can act ten times better. The character Rocky Balboa was believable. Rourke's character was not. Even his name was pretentious: Johnny Walker (get it?) I'll repeat: this movie is horrible. The love story is horrible. The action is horrible. The acting is horrible. The music is good, thanks to Eric Clapton. But everything else stinks.

sherrillita Rourke's Homeboy is accentuated with an excellent musical score. The story might appear "old fashioned" (i.e. 1940's US) to some, but watch the movie again and delve deeper - there is more than first meets the eye. Rourke's shy, awkward Johnny Walker is a memorable character. Walken fans shouldn't miss this one.