Johnny Skidmarks (1998)

Jaded and detached johnny skidmarks is a crime scene photographer who has no qualms about moonlighting as a blackmailer to earn extra cash. Johnny and his team have a lucrative little business going: no one gets hurt not questions asked no harm done until things start going wrong. Studio: Lions Gate Home Ent. Release Date: 05/23/2006 Starring: Frances Mcdormand John Lithgow Run time: 99 minutes Rating: R Product Description

"Where's The Humanity?"

It's a real shame that this film went straight to cable-television, instead of the theaters. I probably would not have caught this film if I had not been visiting by eldest brother. I think it was a very well done film, and Director John Roffo did an excellent job with the character development in this particular film. The films narrative centers around an individual named Johnny (Peter Gallagher), who works as a police photographer. Johnny takes pictures of crime scenes: murders, car accidents, or suicides. Any and all crime related deaths. Further, he does his job as an enthusiastic professional. He begins snapping his camera right away when he is called to the scene: For behind this mans attitude is an individual without compassion.

Moreover, for Johnny, these pictures are just part of his job, and one can see by the way he takes his pictures that Johnny does not seem to really care. It's just a job! Just like a birthday party: Snap the pictures, go home and wait for the next job. Johnny does not have a job any of us would envy. But, where do you draw the line from keeping a distance from this type of work by not taking it home? Or just not caring and really empathizing with the victims you photograph? However, this is not the case, as Johnny is an extremely non-compassionate, and totally uncaring crime scene photographer. We see that even the detectives who investigate the crime scenes are perturbed at what they see. Not Johnny though. In fact, Johnny begins to be known among the police as Skidmarks, due to the fact that he photographs quite a lot of crime scenes for the police department. The other photographers don't have this nickname, but Johnny does, and he doesn't seem to care.

However, things are going to change in Johnny's life. For added income, Johnny also moonlights as a photographer for a blackmailer. It is here on his side job that things are about to go from bad to worse. In just another routine job of photographing men, who in turn will be blackmailed, Johnny is oblivious to whom he is photographing. Just as he does at the crime scenes: For Johnny, this is just another job. However, it's not just another job. And Johnny is going to learn a terrible lesson he will never forget. He photographs the wrong person in this gut-wrenching vengeance suspense-thriller. Enter his friend (John Lithgow) a detective on the police department Johnny photographs for. When others in the blackmail scheme begin to be found dead, Johnny knows something is amiss. Or is there?

Therefore, he turns to his detective friend (John Lithgow). His friend is going to help him out of this mess--if there is one. Or is he? As Johnny photographs the latest crime scenes, which are his fellow blackmailers, he begins to believe that someone knows who they all were, and are trying to kill them off one by one. Or is it just in Johnny's imagination? After all, he rationalizes that he's just the photographer. Nothing more. Is there really someone out there trying to kill them all? Or is Johnny finally finding a conscience? There will be a horrible twist of fate for Johnny when he finds that his saving grace will not come from a place he hopes, but one he least suspects. Will Johnny's detective friend help him? Or is this all in his paranoid mind? This is a really good film, and not to be missed. [Stars: 4.5] August 22, 2006

SMILE FOR THE CAMERA

JOHNNY SKIDMARKS is one of those movies that debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, and then shipped off to HBO. A shame, as this dark, disturbing film is brilliant. Director John Roffo gives us a "noir" feel with some really catchy oldies played throughout. Peter Gallagher stars as Johnny, a crime scene photographer, who is also making some money on the side by taking pictures in a blackmail scam. Things turn sour when Johnny's cohorts start turning up dead, and it looks like Johnny's next. Gallagher is at his best in his role as a man who has stopped participating in life, has stopped caring, has stopped feeling. He doesn't want to know anything about the people he photographs, either on his crime scene job or his blackmailing. He has a brother in law, played well by Jack Black, who runs a clown burger joint(...). Gallagher meets up with Frances McDormand (brilliant as always) as a newcomer who just might have some connection with his blackmailing scam. The ever chameleonic John Lithgow appears as Larry, Johnny's detective friend, who seems to encourage Johnny to feel a little more. Geoffrey Lower adds some macho depth in his role as Larry's partner, who for some reason just doesn't like Johnny. In a small role, lovely Charlie Shadling portrays Lorraine, the hooker the blackmailers use in their scams.
This is a dark and unsettling film, and the finale on the rooftop is gut-wrenching in its brutal honesty.
A very good film, overlooked, but worth seeing! April 22, 2004

not a bad flick, but i'm Really here to praise. . .

. . . the presence of the great-named jack black, who's currently enjoying a bit of a heydey due to his record-shop turn in "high fidelity". i've noticed him for some time now in films such as "bob roberts", "enemy of the state", getting his just bazookaing in "the jackal", and of course his initially off-putting tenacious d appearances. but in skidmarks his usual, wanna-punch-him-in-the-face snideness shined brightest in what may be his ultimate perfect role- a greasy burger clown proprietor who ends up with a bullet in the brainpan! :D we LOVE this guy- he's to character-acting in the 90s what david patrick kelly was in the 80s! :) vt May 8, 2000

A Very Cool Movie!

This is a really interesting movie that I throughly dug and enjoyed. It's part intense character study, part paranoid suspense-thriller, part chase movie. The setup is this: John Scardino is a police crime & accident scene photog who is emotionally numb inside and moonlights as the lens man for an extortion ring, taking dirty snaps of compromised businessmen in their undies with a saucy hooker named Lorraine in sleazy motel rooms. Suddenly, Scardino starts seeing the blackmail crew from his night job turning up as corpses in his day job in seemingly unrelated homicides. Scardino is the only one who notices the connection, but he can't say squat without revealing his involvement in a criminal enterprise! He rediscivers his emotional inner self by getting major league heebie-jeebies trying to figure out who the killer is. He's taken so many snaps over the years, it could be just about anybody. No one can be trusted! Halfway through, the movie explodes open and turns really grisly and intense--be prepared!

The acting--by Peter Gallagher, Frances McDormand, John Lithgow, Jack Black, Geoffrey Lower, John Kapelos, Charlie Spradling and Lee Arenberg--is great and infinitely diggable. The dialogue is really wry and darkly funny, as is the music. And the movie's look has a kind of Edward Hopper-film noir thing going that I also really dug.

Not a lot of people saw this flick when it first came out. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, then went straight to HBO. Which is weird, because it's so good. This one's a real find. Go forth and dig it!

Richard Terhune, The Movie Digger November 17, 1998

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