Johnny 2023 Movie Review
Jan Kaczkowski ( Dawid Ogrodnik ) has made it his mission to help other people in need. His hospice is particularly important to him. One day the criminal Patryk Galewski ( Piotr Trojan ), who was sentenced to community service by the court, also ends up there. He’s not very happy about that, since he can’t really do much with the work there. Others also have doubts that these community hours are a good idea. But over time, a friendship develops between the two men. Jan succeeds in showing the young man a better way. His own, on the other hand, will soon end: the priest has cancer, he doesn’t have much time left to put everything in order…
In recent years there have been quite a number of films in which we follow people who are looking for a fresh start after prison. This is usually very difficult: whether in Home or The Unforgivable , the main characters have to struggle with their past and the prejudices that come with it. Also in Out of the Blue – Dangerous Lust obstacles are put in the way of the young protagonist until he ends up in the arms of a much older woman. Now comes the Polish Netflix drama Johnnyanother title that plays in this thematic environment. Again, at the beginning of the plot there is someone who is looking for a fresh start after being in prison. The fate of the young criminal is only part of the story.
More precisely, the film is about the priest who in many ways makes the lives of others better. On the one hand, this applies to the people in the hospice he runs, whom he helps through their difficult times. Even then he shows his very selfless side, giving everything for her even when he is seriously ill. However, Johnny ‘s focus is on the relationship between the two men. At first glance, they couldn’t be more different: on the one hand the quasi-saint, on the other hand the repeated criminal. And yet a real friendship develops from this, which becomes an enrichment and inspiration for Patryk in particular. In the course of their time together, he finds himself and discovers an alternative to his previous life in several ways.
You can find that very inspiring and an encouragement that you can always start over again, no matter how difficult it may seem at the moment. It was not without reason that the film was a box office hit in Poland. But you can also see it as a drama that is built quite close to kitsch. The drawing of the figures is particularly strenuous in this respect. While Patryk goes through at least one development, even if it’s not overly exciting, Jan lacks any rough edges. Instead he becomes Johnny defined only by his almost unnatural selflessness. And through his illnesses. The fact that he of all people, who does so much good, had to suffer a lot from the start and ultimately died much too young is of course tragic. People here were also very aware of this and didn’t miss the opportunity to expand on it in a particularly lengthy manner.
The fact that the priest had to endure such a hard fate is not even a script birth. Finally, Johnny is based on the true story of Jan Kaczkowski , who founded a hospice and passed away in 2016 at just 39 years old. It’s well acted too, the unrecognizable Dawid Ogrodnik ( Broad Peak , Im Sumpf ) having some intense moments. Nevertheless, this is just a solid film that proceeds too manipulatively and without interesting nuances and degenerates into pure hero worship instead of looking a little deeper. If you’re looking for a hope-giving inspirational drama, you can certainly try this.
“Johnny” tells the story of a priest who volunteers in a hospice and stands up for a young criminal while at the same time being seriously ill. You can find that inspiring. Or manipulative to kitschy, if instead of a multi-layered character description there is only boring hero worship.
