As the Hobbesian Glengarry Glen Ross returns to Broadway, David Mamet frees up a new crop of predatory men from blunt-force capitalism and sticks them in another of his frequent settings: prison. Mamet’s first film since 2008’s martial arts drama Redbelt, and his first since his hard heel turn over the last two decades into a born-again MAGA crank taken in by his own personal con man, Henry Johnson shows fewer signs of that radicalization than one might expect. It’s a tale of mistrustful social Darwinism, of weak and strong men, riddled with Mamet’s classic Gatling gun dialogue. But the film is more hole than bullet; though it’s still thrilling to hear actors fire out Mamet’s heated arguments, when the dust clears from the film’s dense conversations, what remains is hollow.
Henry Johnson adapts Mamet’s four-scene play, which has been staged twice: Once, in its California premiere production featuring the film’s cast, and again in Chicago in a baggage-laden show that the Sun-Times called “the convening of the cancelled.” The film attempts fidelity in this arena: In addition to Mamet writing and directing, Henry Johnson also stars Shia LaBeouf, accused of “relentless abuse” by his ex FKA Twigs. LaBeouf makes up one-fourth of a cast that includes Mamet regulars Chris Bauer and Dominic Hoffman, as well as Evan Jonigkeit (who is married to Mamet’s daughter, Zosia) in the title role. Both Jonigkeit and Hoffman sport Mamet’s translucent orange glasses, a costume-thin self-insert reflecting the theatrical movie’s feints at self-awareness and more contradictory observations.
The narrative concerns the unraveling of Henry, brought low by the exploitations of the more powerful and confident men around him. Initially attempting to justify his recommendation of a sleazy ex-con collegemate to his boss (Bauer), Henry lands himself in jail after embezzling money for said friend’s legal defense. There he’s at the whims of even more dangerous forces, as his cellmate Gene (LaBeouf) and guard Jerry (Hoffman) vie for control of him.
This refutation of mindless following contains both insight and obliviousness. Its hero is rudderless. After he sticks his neck out for the easygoing yet violent playboy that incites the drama off-screen, Henry’s swept away by the currents of the confident cynics and macho grifters making up his scene partners. People who seem to have all the answers lean on his insecurities, “grooming” him for future exploitation. It could be seen as a savvy gesture at the modern masculinity crisis, where angry young men flock to worship at the feet of influencers injecting toxicity directly into their steroid-engorged veins. But Mamet himself seems somewhat convinced of the manosphere ideology, where the disenfranchised learn that, through a misanthropic embrace of selfishness and a dedication to harming those different from them, power is within their grasp. His characters’ Socratic sparring matches poke and prod at friendship, law, community, and (as an afterthought) women, revealing with smug certainty that they only exist to be used.
Similarly, Henry Johnson is a film about the empowered preaching selective skepticism—questioning motivations, questioning institutions, and questioning common wisdom, in a way that those like RFK Jr. and Mamet’s beloved Donald Trump have parlayed into highly lucrative conspiracies. It is a story both suspicious of those in control and reverent of the idea of control, one whose wishy-washy protagonist acquiesces not out of compassion or benevolence but through sheer spinelessness. There is no idealism at play, just limp inability. Jonigkeit’s performance makes the thin characterization more brittle, as he succumbs to Mamet’s machine-stamped material more fully than his castmates. LaBeouf in particular embraces the frayed intensity of a hungry demagogue staring down a mark, while Hoffman offers the most nuanced take on the role model/manipulator figure. These two carry the film even when it threatens to unravel into an opaque fog of call-and-response Mametisms.
But it’s not all overkill. The sparseness in story is echoed in the intimacy and claustrophobia of Mamet’s staging. The office quickly loses its warmth, bars dropping long before Henry finds himself in a prison cell. The two final scenes, set in the prison library, make stark use of the lighting and cautionary signage on the literal walls as the figurative ones close in. The camera gets tight on the performers as they wheedle and argue, giving a boost to Mamet’s dialogue structure, which has become so familiar as to sound like a template—a rhythmic preset on a cinematic synth. But at least in that familiarity, there exists a glimmer of what made Mamet alluring in the first place.
Though the film could be construed as commenting on a current moment, either political or cultural, Henry Johnson drifts like its hero, rootless and soft. Its monologues are more like disconnected philosophical essays than evocative theater, linked mainly by Mamet’s own confused pessimism. Even with Mamet working fully in his comfort zone of contained, stagey sets and rat-a-tat ranting, the biggest selling point to Henry Johnson is that it’s far more watchable than his public provocations would have anyone believe.
Director: David Mamet
Writer: David Mamet
Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Evan Jonigkeit, Chris Bauer, Dominic Hoffman
Release Date: May 9, 2025 (Available to rent)
