Aesthetically, “Johnny Suede” is a gorgeous movie, and it’s one that looks like it could be set any time with the cityscapes awfully appealing even when we set down on gutters and ghettoes. DiCillo has a great eye for pastels and fifties chic set pieces, and one of the treats of the film is the visual oddities that are subtle enough to miss but never forgettable.

I give “Johnny Suede” credit for being original, and unusual and surreal. Hell, if David Lynch made a musical comedy, I think this film would be it. But what’s the ultimate caveats that drag the film down into pure horrid depths? Tedium and acting. This story of a perpetually naïve young man who can’t quite understand how delusional he is in his pipe dream of becoming a huge star would have been better served had we been given a better leading man, but alas Pitt once again convinces me that he’s just not a good actor. Granted, it’s an early role, but Pitt could never convince me he’s a solid performer aside from his brief stint in “Snatch.”

Everything beyond him is a fairly tedious string of events that never can be witty as it so desperately strives for. His interactions with his friend Deke, his song about eating a carrot for breakfast, and his inevitable romance with a woman who thrives on his jealousy and anger is all such tedious fluff without a point nor a purpose. The point of Suede getting Black Suede shoes due to some serendipity in a phone booth in which a good deed gets him a heavenly gift that may or may not have been intentional. Nonetheless, DiCillo’s film is a rather repetitive affair with dialogue that’s just filled nonsensical discussions of Suede’s music and his eventual meeting with a woman who provides a reality check, but not even Keener can competently bring this film to a higher plain of entertainment. “Johnny Suede” has a lot of appeal and potential, but it’s sadly a wasted and utterly terrible experience.

I really have to the appreciate the surreality, and originality it strives in bringing, but “Johnny Suede” as a whole is tedious, dull, and really sports a bevy of weak performances, particularly from Brad Pitt.

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