Character Analysis
If there's one thing that Johnny needs, it's a crash course in financial management. If there are two things that Johnny needs, it's a crash course in financial management and a mentor. If there are three things that Johnny needs, those would be a 1) financial management skills, 2) a mentor, and 3) a new suit.
No one looks good in burgundy stripes, Johnny. Not even when you look like Robert Redford.
All Skill, No Discipline
Let's tackle that first bullet point, shall we?
We know from the start of this movie that Johnny Hooker is a really skilled conman—after all, he barely breaks a sweat when he cons Mottolla out of fifteen thousand dollars. But he also shows us that he's not all that admirable (or responsible) once he's got a little money in his pocket. He takes his share of the fifteen thousand and blows it all on a single spin of roulette.
Yeah. He drops three grand—which is like fifty thousand bucks in today's money—on a game of chance. His partner, Luther, tries to set him straight after he hears about the incident, saying:
LUTHER COLMAN: You're a conman, and you blew it like a pimp. I didn't teach ya to be no pimp.
Luther clearly has a lot invested in Johnny, but Johnny doesn't have any discipline and has no clue what to do with money once he has it.
One of the reasons Johnny isn't great with money is because the guy is just too restless to know when to sit on a good thing. He seems like he's addicted to taking risks—even when he gives kickback money to a cop (which is probably Best Practices when you're a con artist), he tells his buddy:
JOHNNY HOOKER: That stuff I gave him was counterfeit. They'll pinch him the first place he tries to spend it.
Ugh. Hooker, you idiot.
Hooker probably knows (because he's no dummy) that passing counterfeit money can get him up to ten years in jail. Add to that the fact that he gave this money to a crooked cop and you know he's not really thinking very far beyond his next score or his next meal.
Revenge and Pride
And Johnny's recklessness goes further than passing off Monopoly money and blowing his hard-conned cash on the roulette wheel. After his friend Luther gets killed, Johnny can basically only think about getting revenge on the man responsible—Doyle Lonnegan.
We get it; Lonnegan is a murderous creep. But Johnny could really stand to slow down and think about the consequences of his actions. Unfortunately, Johnny's a selfish dude who only thinks about his own revenge and not all the friends who are trying to help him in the process.
Which brings us to What Johnny Needs #2: a mentor.
Time and time again, Johnny gets attacked by Doyle Lonnegan's thugs and barely gets away. And time and time again, Henry Gondorff tells Johnny to let him know if he has anyone breathing down his neck. And when Henry finally realizes that Johnny is hiding something, he scolds him by saying,
HENRY GONDORFF: You can't play your friends like marks, Hooker.
The reason he needs to say this is that Johnny's a bit of a lone wolf who doesn't think about how his actions will affect other people…even when he's relying on these other people to achieve his grand revenge.
A Little Lonely
For much of this movie, we're led to believe that Johnny likes to hang out by himself…and doesn't like asking others for help.
But when he goes to meet the waitress Loretta in the middle of the night, he shows a deep sense of loneliness by saying,
JOHNNY HOOKER: You know me. I'm just like you. It's two in the morning and I don't know nobody.
This is the most vulnerable we'll ever see Hooker, and the ironic thing here is that he's saying this to an assassin who's been hired to kill him. So we know that Hooker is totally capable of becoming the victim of other people's cons.
It's only the help of Henry Gondorff's hired assassin that saves Hooker from Loretta. Hooker needs Gondorff looking after him like a fairy godmother—and luckily, Gondorff is savvy enough to know this about his young protégée.
Lessons Learned (And Not Learned)
So does Johnny Hooker get what he needs by the end of the film? The answer is yes…and no.
By the end of the movie, Hooker has learned to put more trust in his friends and to work as part of a team. But it is important to note that there's some stuff about him that hasn't changed at all—and never will.
When asked if he wants to pick up his cut of the Lonnegan con, Johnny just smiles and says,
JOHNNY HOOKER: Naw, I'd just blow it.
Johnny knows that he'll never be good with money. He'd rather walk away from the whole wad than tempt his own reckless nature. But we know that Johnny has gotten what he truly wants, which is a new mentor/friend in Henry Gondorff and revenge for his murdered partner, Luther. Aww. There's no bromance like the bromance between suave criminals.
And as far as that last item on the list of What Johnny Hooker Needs? A suit that doesn't look like the wallpaper in a nursing home? The good news is that, by the end of the film, Johnny seems to have traded his stripey outfit for a classy gray suit.
We'll go ahead and say that's a happy ending for our boy Johnny.
Johnny Hooker's Timeline