David Mamet has never shied away from challenging his audiences, but with Henry Johnson, his first film in 17 years, he plunges even deeper into a cerebral territory that’s equal parts enigmatic and exasperating. While Mamet’s language still bristles with tension and verbal sparring, it’s Shia LaBeouf who steals the show in a riveting performance that injects blood into the play’s dry philosophical dissection.
The film adapts Mamet’s 2023 play and unfolds in three acts, each staged like a self-contained intellectual cage match. The opening act pits Henry (Evan Jonigkeit), a twitchy junior executive, against his grizzled superior Mr. Barnes (Chris Bauer), in what begins as a tense workplace confrontation and quickly morphs into an interrogation about Henry’s disturbing past. The true subject, however, is human manipulation — a familiar Mamet theme — explored through icy exchanges and allegorical subtext that hints at hot-button issues like abortion with provocative subtlety.
Where the film finds real momentum is in its prison-set second act, as Henry, now incarcerated, meets his cellmate Gene — played with explosive charisma and unnerving intensity by Shia LaBeouf. Gene is a philosophical predator, a sociopath who reads people like books and speaks in cryptic parables about violence, power, and fairy tales. LaBeouf’s performance recalls the great unstable antiheroes of cinema, channeling menace and intellect with equal measure.
By the final act, Henry Johnson is less about resolution and more about immersion into Mamet’s personal discomfort zone — a place where logic twists inward, characters often talk past each other, and meaning is something you mine rather than receive. While Mamet’s stylized dialogue can feel more like performance than communication, the film manages flashes of brilliance, largely thanks to LaBeouf’s magnetic presence and a slow-burn structure that rewards patient viewers.
Ultimately, Henry Johnson isn’t a return to form — it’s Mamet deep in his own cryptic maze. But even if you don’t always follow his breadcrumbs, the performances, particularly LaBeouf’s, make the journey worth watching.
