Review of Johnny Got His Gun (2008) by Kyle W — 12 Jul 2009

'Johnny Got His Gun' is one Hell of a story turned into an even more Hellacious filmgoing experience by it's author, Dalton Trumbo. As you are drawn into the protagonist's interior netherworld of memories, despair and madness, you find yourself feeling equally imprisoned, wanting so badly to get out of the shackles this poor man is in. The performances all around are great, particularly that of Timothy Bottoms, whose flashbacks and voiceover narration allow the man to come out of the disfigurement.

In some ways it reminded me of David Lynch's 'The Elephant Man', where beauty is found within an ugly exterior. Interestingly, Lynch's 'Elephant Man' is less surreal than this waking nightmare, which was co-written by the grand master of surrealism on film: Luis Bunuel. Bunuel initially was going to direct it until Trumbo took over, but some of Bunuel's images (Donald Sutherland as a seemingly apathetic Christ-hallucination) carry over.

Why would anyone want to experience this misery? Well, because we can all empathize with the man's plight: being denied the right to live or die. There's a yearning for release we want this man to have, and it never comes. In the finals words of the protagonist as he recedes into Hell:''this will pass...help me...this will pass...help me...''.