ON THE SILVER SCREEN: "JONAH HEX" A WESTERN THAT SHOOTS BLANKS

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By Brian Lafferty

 

June 19, 2010 (San Diego's East County) -- Jonah Hex is one of those movies that had me sitting in the dark both literally and figuratively. I had barely any idea what was going on except Jonah Hex’s (Josh Brolin) family being torched by Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich), Jonah seeking revenge, and Turnbull’s attempted terrorist plot on Washington D.C.

 

From that description, it sounds like a lot happens. Don’t be fooled. There is barely any plot in Jonah Hex, an incomprehensible mess of a movie that tries to stretch a razor-thin plot into a feature-length running time.

 

The special effects are incredibly unbelievable. There’s plenty of obvious CGI to go around, especially those of the fake-looking explosions variety. The shootouts are boring and predictable. Sure enough, we get that old tired cliché in which all the bad guys appear to be dead except one, who tries to fire one last shot. And can we please have a moratorium on having characters walking towards the camera away from an explosion? Simply riding on a horse doesn’t make it any less groan-inducing.

 

This picture does succeed at one thing: manipulating the audience. The film opens with Jonah’s family being torched as he can only watch helplessly. We hear his wife and son screaming as they are burned to death. (Thankfully off-camera) If that’s not enough, we have to see some of that again not once but twice later on.

 

Megan Fox is given a very thankless role as a prostitute. Her character has only one purpose in the script and that is the damsel in distress. One completely unnecessary (but thankfully short) subplot involves a very persistent male client who becomes unhealthily smitten with her. I presume this was to stretch the film’s running time. Later, she’s kidnapped by Malkovich so that the stakes are raised for Jonah. Now he’s in danger of losing another person he loves dearly.

 

The characters speak with stereotypical western accents that make them into caricatures. They are also fed such clichéd lines as, “There’s no honor in war. War is killing, simple as that” and “The fate of our country may very well rest on the shoulders of Jonah Hex.”

 

Jonah Hex may only run eighty minutes but it feels like it runs two hours. Is it too much to ask for a comprehensible action picture with a simple story and unpredictable action? Actually, there is. It was released last week. It may not be perfect but it is entertaining, fun to watch, and has a simple story that may require a lot of attention to be paid but it’s worth the effort. That movie is The A-Team.
 


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