If you’re not familiar with the story then let me recap it for you. Jonah Hex is an ex-confederate soldier that turned on his own soldiers to avoid destroying a hospital. When Hex ends up killing Jeb Turnbull (who happens to be his best friend as well) Quentin Turnbull, Jeb’s father, goes on a manhunt for Hex. Turnbull hunts down and kills Hex’s family and let’s Hex live, and also gives him a nice ‘QT’ burn in his cheek as a reminder of who ruined his life. Not really needing a reminder, Hex removes the imprint with a tomahawk, which nearly kills him. Native Americans revive him, but also provide a doorway to the dead for Hex. Hex can talk with the dead by merely touching them. Hex makes it his life goal to hunt down Quentin and to get revenge. He gets his chance when Turnbull turns up again this time threatening to dismantle the newly formed American government with a massively dangerous gun.
I watched this last night and I’ve been contemplating it all day. The movie didn’t have any intentions of being bad. Getting Josh Brolin into a film, after he was praised so loudly for his role in No Country for Old Men, probably isn’t easy. With that said, I don’t think it’s the fault of the actor that this film didn’t work out as well as anticipated. Brolin played the role of Hex perfectly. His role of an uncaring, revenge driven cowboy is interesting enough to make me look up the comic series today. On the flip side to that coin John Malkovich’s role as Quentin Turnbull was great as well. Malkovich plays a perfect villain and was the only redeeming factor in Con Air. As for Megan Fox, well it’s Megan Fox. Her character is extremely useless in the film and story, so I can only guess she was added for the eye candy. If you’re targeting the comic crowd, same crowd for Transformers, then she’s a perfect fit.
So, if the acting was fine what was the problem? I found one big gaping hole in the film. The actual origin of Jonah Hex was rushed. If you’re going to give a ‘revenge’ reason for our anti-hero then you have to make sure the audience is solidly connected to that reason. I think the film spent maybe 2-3 minutes to establish the ‘revenge’ side of the story, which is not enough time for an audience to connect. For example, Gladiator had established itself well for a ‘revenge’ plot. Ridley Scott shows Maximus’ loyalty to Rome, loyalty to his family and you actually get to see Maximus with his family. Once it all goes to hell the audience is already connected because they know this guy. Scott sets up Maximus with a back story that’s strong and gives good reason why the emperor must die. Jonah Hex doesn’t establish this type of strong back story; it merely quickly goes through it. It’s as if they were trying to get to the ‘action’ when they really needed to focus on the character. Without this back story the movie becomes a sub par action film that thrives on a series of moments rather than a strong story. I think ultimately this is where Jonah Hex stumbles and falls.
If your audience can’t bond with a character in a revenge film and feel any sort of empathy then there’s no point in having ‘revenge’. You want your audience to say, “Get that son of a bitch!” when it’s Hex vs. Turnbull. Without a reason (backstory) then the connection is just not there.
Anyway, it does have some good action scenes in it and Brolin does have some great moments, but that’s all they are, moments.
Shifting gears, the DVD comes packed with additional scenes in the special features section. The additional scenes aren’t that bad, and in some instances help it out a bit. Regretfully this is all you get with the DVD, which is too bad. I would have loved to hear commentary from director Jimmy Hayward or have a nice big featurette about the production. You just get additional scenes, though.