Mean Johnny Barrows opens in Vietnam, as sadistic white officers participate in a not-so-friendly practical joke by tricking the title character, played by Fred Williamson, into stepping on a live landmine. Unamused, Williamson responds by punching one of them in the face. But what happens next? The theme song by Gordon Staples And The Devastating Affair provides some answers: "They sent him home / to dream alone / He won the battle but he lost the war." Not stopping there, the song continues with some advice to help him in his new situation: "Hold on to your courage / Rise above it all / Don't let your back get pinned against the wall." To this end, Williamson seeks employment, politely refusing the help of Stuart Whitman, an old football rival turned gangster with a sinister purpose for Williamson's athletic prowess. "Let's see how many meals you can buy with a silver star," Whitman says after Williamson's kiss-off. Williamson quickly discovers that the answer is "zero." Again, Staples provides commentary: "What's it all about? / He's done no wrong / There's no jobs for Johnny when he comes marching home." With the help of philosophical homeless man Elliott Gould, Williamson learns about soup kitchens and other sources of free meals. But he needs a hand up, not a handout. After again refusing the mob, despite the entreaties of Whitman's curvaceous girlfriend (Jenny Sherman), Williamson believes he's found one when the owner of a gas station gives him a job and a place to sleep. Still, the humiliation of working the pumps begins to get the better of his good intentions, and when Whitman is badly injured in a confrontation with a rival boss, Sherman's pleading eventually draws Williamson into the fold of organized crime. Soon, he trades in his faded denims for a white pinstripe suit, as he takes on a family fronted by an innocent-looking flower shop run by Roddy McDowall, sporting a hairstyle that proves the pursuit of bangs and a bouffant need not be mutually exclusive. After feeding McDowall to the sharks and finishing off his associates, Williamson believes his journey of revenge has reached its end, unaware of a final, fatal double-cross. The closing message dedicating the film "to the veteran who traded his place on the front line for a place on the unemployment line" is presumably intended especially for those who later lost their lives thanks to back-stabbing gangster molls.
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