Trama

After being double crossed and thrown in prison, a deformed gangster gets a new face and rehabilitation, but his desire for revenge looms.

Johnny Handsome is a deformed gangster who plans a successful robbery with his best friend, Mikey Chalmette, and another couple (Sunny Boid and Rafe Garrett). During the heist, Johnny and Mikey are double-crossed by Sunny and Rafe---Mikey is killed and Johnny sent to prison. While in prison, Johnny is invited to a rehabilitation program, where Dr. Steven Fischer rebuilds his face and helps him get paroled. While going straight, Johnny starts working in a shipyard, where he meets Donna McCarty and starts a romance. Lt. A.Z. Drones is a dour and skeptical New Orleans Police detective who follows the rehabilitation of Johnny. However, Johnny's new life is consumed by the desire of revenge against Sunny and Rafe for double-crossing him and Mikey.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

For old times' sake, career criminal Johnny Handsome agrees to help his only friend, Mikey Chalmette, stay in the game. Naturally, instead of gratitude, Johnny takes the blame for a bloody robbery of a coin store and gets five years behind bars. As Johnny gets an unexpected new lease of life and a squeaky-clean fresh start, the nagging desire to get even with the past threatens Johnny's last chance at going straight. And with a dour law enforcement officer breathing down his neck, mistakes are bound to happen. He was once a nobody waiting for a miracle; now he is a somebody ready to blow this in the name of revenge. With the ghost of betrayal looming over his miserable existence, will anyone ever miss Johnny Handsome, the fool with good looks?—Nick Riganas

Petty career crook John Sedley (Mickey Rourke) is mocked by others as Johnny Handsome because of his deformed face. His knack for observing and planning gets him and his best friend Mikey Chalmette (Scott Wilson) into a robbery of a collectable coin store with Sunny Boyd (Ellen Barkin) and Rafe Garrett (Lance Henriksen) but the job goes sideways. Rafe and Sunny double cross the others, killing everyone else in the job except Johnny, and leaving him to take the blame. Johnny goes to prison and is warned that since this is his second time convicted for a felony, the next time makes him a third-time loser and he will be given the maximum sentence.

In prison, Johnny is accosted and knifed by two other inmates and sent to the hospital where he is visited by Lt. A.Z. Drones (Morgan Freeman) who informs him that Rafe paid to have him killed and urges Johnny to give evidence to take him down. Lt. Drones also informs Johnny that, on the inside, he is still a hardened criminal and always will be. While Johnny recuperates, enlightened Dr. Steven Fisher (Forrest Whitaker) believes that once he can repair Johnny's cleft palette and reconstruct his face, he can change his life because the world will see him in a dissimilar more positive way. Lt. Drones tears down the doctor's ideas insisting that someone who is bad will continue being bad regardless of his looks.

Johnny agrees to the medical procedures and has his impaired speech and face changed and reenters society with a parole agreeing to continue psychological observation from the doctor. Johnny gets a job on a construction crew where he meets Donna McCarty (Elizabeth McGovern) who sees something special in him, but he pushes her away planning his revenge on those crooks that have double crossed him. Johnny approaches Rafe and Sunny with a job for a robbery of the construction site and things go along fine until suspicions cause curiosity. Johnny cannot forget his sworn revenge against Sunny and Rafe, joining them for the job, which ends violently for them all.