Director: Huck Botko
MPAA Rating: NR
Film Pulse Score: 3.5/10
The phrase “Thinking with your dick” has been one thrown around for years when referring to men who make poor decisions when it comes to sex and their lack of restraint. Huck Botko’s Bad Johnson takes this idea and raises it to the next level by having a man’s penis fall off and literally morph into a sex crazed maniac. With a premise like this what could possibly go wrong? As it turns out, quite a bit. Bad Johnson is an unfunny mess that proves to be demeaning to both sexes and will only appeal to 12-year-old boys who love dick jokes.
Cam Gigandet plays Rich Johnson (get it? Dick Johnson?), a typical good-looking dude-bro who works as a personal trainer and moonlights as a womanizing scumbag. After cheating on a girl whom he quite possibly is falling for, played by Jamie Chung, Rich’s penis disappears. Nick Thune, who plays his dick, gives him a call letting him know he is now a human, and the madcap adventure begins.
The film plays out much like a more lowbrow version of the Farrelly Brothers’ Shallow Hal, if you can imagine such a thing. Because Rich has lost his penis, he can finally think with his heart and fall in love and yada yada. Of course, the conflict arises when Rich’s penis runs amuck through the city, sleeping with every woman he encounters, who seem to be under some sort of spell throwing themselves on him in droves. To exacerbate things even more, the penis is also trying to sabotage Rich’s newfound appreciation for women by ruining his budding relationship.
The biggest problem with Bad Johnson isn’t its poor depiction of both men and women, or its lackluster plot, but the fact that it’s simply not funny. None of the jokes land with the exception of a few throwaway lines from Nick Thune. While judging comedy is certainly one of the most subjective things one can look at in a movie, I find it hard to believe that many will find any humor here. That being said, if nothing but dick jokes are your jam, then this might be worth a look.
Bad Johnson is a flaccid chode of a movie. Although the idea in and of itself is stupid, it had the potential to provide some silly concepts but it never goes further than his penis just acting like a gross horny guy that picks up a lot of prostitutes. This is a bottom of the barrel sex comedy that is destined to only generate revenue from frat boys blind buying it from iTunes and being sorely disappointed.
