Johnny 316 (1998) – Erick Ifergan.

'He wore a white suit, looking just like John Holmes!'

Aesthetic, and Oblique 90s art flick finds an immaculately beauteous-looking, if not altogether angelic Vincent Gallo as a white-clad street preacher on Hollywood Boulevard, seemingly slinging the word of god like much refried hash. Clearly a man with a past, one that remains enigmatic, stoically(ish) abjuring all fleshly sin, he fatefully attracts the obsessively lustful attentions of spectacularly stunning wastoid Sally(Nina Brosch). Give, or take, a theological nuance, his absolute rejection of her instigates his martyrdom, ersatz, or otherwise. Johnny 316 is steeped in biblical allegory, but since I never had much faith in monotheism, all the whore of Babylon/Salome/John The Baptist spiel is anathema to a secular grot like myself.

A Scorsese/Pasolini would have far more of a scholastic handle on Johnny 316, and talkin' about maestro Pasolini, the compelling observations by icon Seymour Cassel, and the seamier denizens of the Boulevard, all of whom believed our boy to be a legitimate godhead, appeared utterly authentic. This apparent usage of amateur/non-actors, perhaps, referencing the neo-realistic ideals of the Italian maestros of yore. Closing on another entirely subjective viewpoint, as I don't believe it was in a anyway deliberately intended, Ifergan's film occasionally recalled John Huston's equally fervid Wise Blood. Initially, Johnny 316 didn't get its tentacles too deeply into me, but, to be fair, a good few days later, I started to mull over certain sequences again.