The Outlaw Johnny Black

The Outlaw Johnny Black

Hell bent on avenging the death of his father, Johnny Black vows to gun down Brett Clayton and becomes a wanted man in the process while posing as a preacher in a small mining town that's been taken over by a notorious Land Baron.

  • Released:
  • Runtime: 130 minutes
  • Genre: Action, Comedy, Western
  • Stars: Michael Jai White, Byron Minns, Anika Noni Rose, Kym Whitley, Erica Ash, Glynn Turman, Barry Bostwick, Tyler Bryan, Kevin Chapman, Paul Logan, Tommy Davidson, Buddy Lewis, Chris Browning, Gary Anthony Williams, Tony Baker
  • Director: Michael Jai White
 Comments
  • reddfivepublishing - 22 April 2024
    Not A Comedy, Not Much of a Western
    Outlaw Johnny Black calls itself a "spiritual successor" to the infinitely superior Black Dynamite, but despite having the same creative team, that couldn't be further from the truth.

    Despite starting out with potential, Outlaw Johnny Black immediately devolves into mediocre filmmaking which highlights a very cheap look and doesn't capture the visual style of a western movie, whilst its long runtime and slow pace ensures that it drags on. I could forgive all this if the film found the time to be funny in between, but with an obsession on revering in the western films of yesteryear without having the actual knowhow on to make a good western film itself, it seems that the filmmakers actually forgot they were making a comedy this time around. I wasn't laughing, I wasn't excited, I was just downright bored. And despite my best efforts, I couldn't make it past the 40 minute mark and have no intention of returning to do so.

    A massive letdown after the brilliance of Black Dynamite.
  • paul_haakonsen - 20 November 2023
    Quite good...
    When I stumbled upon this 2023 Western titled "Outlaw Johnny Black" here in 2023, I had never heard about the movie. But seeing that the movie had Michael Jai White on the cast list was more than sufficient to make me stop and take notice. Needless to say that of course I opted to watch the movie solely because Michael Jai White was on the cast list.

    Writers Byron Minns and Michael Jai White put together a rather enjoyable and entertaining script and storyline. It is a script that combines both good storytelling, action, comedy, and good old fashioned Western. And I have to admit that I was more than genuinely entertained throughout the course of the 130 minutes that the movie ran for.

    The acting performances in "Outlaw Johnny Black" were good, and Michael Jai White definitely carried the movie quite nicely. It was a good cast ensemble, with the likes of Barry Bostwick, Chris Browning and Randy Couture as the only familiar faces for me. But I will say that the likes of Anika Noni Rose, Erica Ash and Byron Minns also were great in the movie.

    "Outlaw Johnny Black" looked and felt like a Western, and the added light action and comedy elements were sprucing up the movie quite nicely, making it all the more of an enjoyable movie to sit through.

    My rating of "Outlaw Johnny Black" lands on a seven out of ten stars.
  • thx-18760 - 16 September 2023
    It's Not Blazing Saddles 2.0
    I am a huge fan of Michael Jai White's BLACK DYNAMITE film and I have been waiting for this film since 2018. At more than two hours it can drag while it sets up all the pieces of its elaborate plot. Jai White manages to blend his martial arts skills into this western with his own signature flare. Michael Jai White and Byron Minns wrote Outlaw Johnny Black and starred in it. Much like Black Dynamite, they bring their sense of humor to the Western genre, but while Black Dynamite was a satire of the blaxploitation, films of yesteryear, Johnny Black is more of a Western with comic relief akin to Blazing Saddles but a bit more restrained. It does have a minimal amount of tongue-in-cheek double entendres. There will be some offended by how the Native Americans are portrayed in the film, even as blatant comic relief but those who understand the satire and humor will chuckle along at the references. Fans of the previous film will notice all of the actors that White and Mimms enjoy working with as repeat faces appear throughout.