Review of Jonah Hex (2010) by Meritcoba — 05 Nov 2019

Michael Fassbender steals the show in this awful movie as an evil henchman while Josh Brolin struggles to be the reluctant antihero. Brolin plays a former Confederate officer who rises from the dead and gets all kinds of powers in the bargain. He seeks to exact revenge on the bad guy, Turnbull, played by John Malkovich. To up the stakes Turnbull, also a former Confederate Generall, intends to destroy the Union.

I wonder where we have seen that before...

This movie reminds me of Wild Wild West. It has the same kind of story, it has also good actors - not counting Will Smith - and is equally disastrous. The main difference is that Wild Wild West became what it wants to be, even if it was bad at it, but Jonah Hex became nothing, and was equally bad at that as well. On the one hand, this movie seems to go for a grim mood like Sin City. Sin City uses contrasts to underscore the personalities and the action. The comic itself is even done in black and white to highlight the contrasts. It is powerful, it is grim and it works.

On the other hand, Jonah Hex goes for nonsense. The villain plots to destroy the United States with a super cannon that fires nukes as shells and the president needs the help of Hex to stop the evil guy. And how about the two Gatling guns strapped to a horse? These are the trappings of a comedy.

And there you have a major problem. These two opposites tend to cancel each other out. It is just hard to be grim and funny at the same time. Hell, some movies have just issues with being one or the other. Like Wild Wild West; it wants to be funny but it isn't.

The greatest sin, however, is that there is no attempt to make us care. It is telling that the person I liked most was Fassbender's evil henchman and he was just in the movie for a few minutes. The ultimate challenge for any story is that it should make you care. And this movie fails to do so.