Several years before his roles as the leader of a fight club, a backwards-aging man, and a Nazi-slaughtering redneck, Brad Pitt played the title role in Tom DiCillo's "Johnny Suede". Johnny is man on skid row with ambitions to be the next Ricky Nelson. He already has a band, and even starts up a relationship with young Darlette (Alison Moir). But as his music career goes nowhere, she leaves him. Upon meeting the offbeat Yvonne (Catherine Keener),Johnny starts to wonder if maybe there's more to life than trying to be a rock star.

I didn't find this movie to be any sort of masterpiece, but I still thought that it was worth seeing. More than just an early vehicle for Pitt - sporting an absurdly large pompadour - and Keener, it shows Johnny's eventually having to recognize reality, especially given the world that he inhabits (the movie doesn't present a flattering look at Brooklyn).

There are also two supporting cast members playing roles totally the opposite of their most famous ones. Tina Louise, far removed from Ginger Grant, plays Darlette's manipulative mother. Samuel L. Jackson plays one of the band members. Ginger Grant co-starred with the guy who said "mother---king snakes on a mother---king plane" (although they don't share any scenes).

Anyway, I recommend "Johnny Suede". A look at lost dreams - much of the movie is in fact made to look dreamlike, probably stressing the contrast between Johnny's fantasies and reality - along with some very surprising stuff. Nick Cave appears as another man with a crazy hairdo. Tom DiCillo later directed "Living in Oblivion", starring Steve Buscemi as a man going through hell trying to make a movie.

Johnny Suede finds Brad Pitt in a character study of a would be rock and roll superstar who just can't quite get his career off the ground. In a homage to a famous Twilight Zone episode He finds a pair of classy suede shoes that seem to complete the look he keeps trying to obtain. Unfortunately it takes more than just a look and some talent to make a star.

Brad's Johnny is a likable if shallow character. He can't seem to get a career goal in focus and some things beyond his control seem to be defeating him. Nevertheless he persists and even finds some true love in the end in the person of Catherine Keener, though he nearly blows that situation.

That exaggerated pompadour was absolutely unreal, it must have been close to a foot high. It so obviously a wig yet it did seem to match Brad Pitt's natural coloring. He must have gotten a migraine headache just wearing it around.

Johnny Suede is a film made on the cheap. I will say I liked the choice of location shooting in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Around that time the area was starting to become gentrified. Now some of those loft apartments and reconverted brownstones are starting to match the more swanky sections of Brooklyn if not yet at Manhattan levels.

In the supporting cast I did like Calvin Levels performance as Pitt's best friend and confidante who finally decides to leave him because he's tired of waiting for Pitt's dream band to become reality.

Johnny Suede is not a great film, but it does give full display to Brad Pitt's natural charisma and talent and clearly shows the star he was to become.

This was a strange kind of film about a low-lifes in New York City and centering around a main character (the title name, played by Brad Pitt) who thinks he''s a Ricky Nelson-type musician, except he has no real talent.

It's kind of fun to watch until a profane tough New York City-type woman with horrible accent enters the picture and takes over. That ruined the film for me. It must have been Catherine Keener, who usually plays tough and garbage-mouthed women.

The hairdo on Pitt - an exaggerated Pompadour - was fun to look at. I can picture Johnny Depp playing this role better. One last note: it odd to hear a film made in 1992 (other than Woody Allen's) with just mono sound.