Movie Review Jonah Hex

Jonah Hex (2010)

Directed by Jimmy Hayward

Written by Neveldine and Taylor

Starring Josh Brolin, Megan Fox, John Malkovich

Release Date June 18th, 2010

Published June 18th, 2010

There is a cult that surrounds the “Jonah Hex” comic books. The character is a melding of Gothic horror and western conventions and arrived around the time that Clint Eastwood had made westerns cool again, back in the early 1970's. “Jonah Hex” has been preparing for its pop culture close up for almost that whole time.

Now, more than 30 years after its debut, with Josh Brolin in the role of Jonah, and a first time live action filmmaker Jimmy Hayward (his first feature was the animated “Horton Hears a Who”), behind the camera, the underground comics legend comes to the big screen and many are going to wish it had waited a little longer.

Josh Brolin is “Jonah Hex,” an old west bounty hunter with the ability to talk to the dead and an unending urge for vengeance against the man who killed his family. That man is Jonah's former commanding officer in the Confederate Army, General Turnbull (John Malkovich). Jonah killed Turnbull's son, Jeffrey Dean Morgan in an uncredited cameo, while trying to prevent his unit from burning down a hospital.

Soon after, Jonah had deserted the army only to be tracked down by Turnbull and made to watch as his family was burned alive. Turnbull doesn't stop there, he wants Jonah to never forget the man who did this to his family and burns his initials into Jonah's face with a branding iron. To say this was upsetting to Jonah would be a minor understatement. 

Left for dead, Jonah was rescued by an Indian tribe, because of course he was. Movies always have to go give this kind of hero a mystical rub from the noble Native American tribe. Through some kind of mystical ceremony Jonah attains his unique power to speak to the dead. The dead have the convenient ability to find people they knew when they were alive wherever they are in the world and thus the ghosts tell Jonah where to find them. What luck, right?

Megan Fox plays Jonah's favorite sex worker, Lilah, likely the only one who can stand his ugly mug. She has little function in the main plot other than being Megan Fox and wearing skimpy period sex worker clothes. There is a forced romance between Lilah and Jonah but since writers Neveldine and Taylor, the idiots behind the awful “Crank” movies, could not write a convincing romance, we are merely told that Jonah and Lilah have more than a sex worker and john relationship.

The ‘relationship’ allows the writing team to include Lilah in the film's final act shootout where she demonstrates one of many convenient talents that she and Jonah both have that are only revealed to us when the characters really need them. Characters also arrive conveniently in just the place they need to, like when Jonah is shot in the chest and passes out from the pain just a few yards from those noble, mystical Native Americans who saved his life before and are ready to save him again.

“Jonah Hex” is a clumsy, poorly crafted comic book story hampered by an idiot script that lurches between a modern story and more cutaways than an episode of “Family Guy.” The film is humorless, sexist, and even at a mere 82 minutes in length, drags from one scene to the next as if the gloom that surrounds the character of Jonah Hex were anchored on the whole movie.

To be fair, one thing in “Jonah Hex” does kind of works and it is star Josh Brolin. Despite being hampered by ridiculous burn make-up, Brolin delivers Jonah as the badass he is meant to be. Combining a little Clint Eastwood with a little John Wayne and shooting it through a Gothic, horror comic book lens, Brolin swaggers and croaks out his lines with grizzly relish. Brolin brings a cool to the movie that was lacking in both scripting and direction.

Director Jimmy Heyward and the writing team of Neveldine and Taylor undermine Josh Brolin’s performance by cutting every corner, abusing flashbacks to tell Jonah’s backstory, and provide convenient information needed to lurch the plot forward. When not abusing flashbacks they abuse handy dialogue like that from the Blacksmith who crafts Jonah’s pseudo period weaponry.

The Blacksmith who, prepare to laugh, happens to be black and named Smith (Ha!) helpfully passes along the reason why Jonah fought for the Confederacy - he was a contrarian, not a racist slave owner. Jonah was a contrarian who couldn’t stand the government telling him what to do. As Smith says, Jonah couldn’t be a racist because they are such good friends. Ugh.

Comic book fans take heart, this version of “Jonah Hex” will fail miserably and when it does DC Comics will wait a few years, find a hot rising star and start whispering about a Jonah reboot. “Jonah Hex” is too terrific a character for the company to give up on, even when this movie version of Jonah crashes and burns.