No. 14 Jonah Hex (2010) 48 of 100

 

If ever a film was less than the sum of its parts it would have to be Jonah Hex. There is clearly a decent budget in play and a veritable galaxy of stars on show – for your money you get Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Michaels Fassbender and Shannon, Megan Fox, Gob Bluth, Lance Reddick and even one of the ‘Dukes of Hazzard’, yet you end up with this complete turd of a movie.

It had ‘troubled production’ written all over it, with go nowhere scenes and a voice over to cut through some of the narrative blocks. Even with what appears to be brutal editing and a short 72 minute run time you still end up with something that makes little or no sense, no characterisation and a plot with more holes than a colander factory.

Brolin plays Hex, a DC comics character who is coming out of the Civil War having fought for the South. “You never believed in slavery” someone says, apropos of nothing, to let us know he’s a good guy really. He had an unfortunate tangle with Malkovich’s baddie which left him with no family and a large facial scar. For reasons unexplained it also left him with the power to interrogate corpses, with his very touch bringing them back to life for a few seconds for a quick chin-wag. I appreciate the film has comic book origins but this supernatural power made no sense at all in the otherwise grounded universe of the film, and it came across as a time saving plot device. ‘How can I find the baddie?’ - ‘I’ll just ask that there corpse’!

For reasons not fully explained Malkovich plans to destroy the Capital during the centenary celebrations. To assist him in this he has a new technology – cannonballs that explode like a nuclear bomb. Again there is no reason given for this incongruous technology in an otherwise old west setting, but you just have to go with it.

Hex has a hooker with a heart friend in Megan Fox and Malkovich has an embarrassing Irish henchman, played by Michael Fassbender. I hope he was well paid for this horrible part as a tattooed diddle-de-dee sidekick who offered as much thereat as a leprechaun.

During his hunt for Malkovich, who seemingly died in a hotel fire and then didn’t, Hex stumbles upon a pit fighting ring where exotic pugilists duke it out to the death. It is here that we find Shannon in his ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ appearance as a ring master. He is well made up and gives it his all for his single scene. I’m guessing the rest of his scenes were cut or dropped down the back of the editing desk, as he is heard off camera and then appears suspiciously with his hat over his eyes to throw an axe to the fighters. This looked like a stand in, which is strange given he only had five seconds of screen time in total.

The film wanders on aimlessly for a while before the inevitable showdown onboard a battle ship. The old cliches of the countdown and simultaneous fights are rolled out as Fox and Hex sort out the various poorly defined bad guys. Fassbender gets the chop and Malkovich, who Hex fights on an astral plain for some reason, meets his demise in unmemorable fashion.

Hex rides off at the end mumbling about how he’d pay for his revenge later; but at least he didn’t make it to sequel town.

There were a couple of decent explosions on show and I liked the brief foray into comic book art which covered some of the plot development, such as it was. Brolin’s make up was decent and the film had an authentic grimy look to it, although a lot of the night scenes were hard to make out.

This was however a total waste of a good opportunity with an interesting comics character reduced to a by the numbers western gunslinger. The rest of the cast must have needed words with their agents after this film was excreted out, as none of them showed up well, not least Shannon whose appearance could barely qualify as a cameo.

When is Shannon-On? - 29.17

Outcome? Still running his fight club, if he got the fire out.

Film 2/5

Shannon Stars 1/5