Jonah Hex - DVD Review

*

Starring Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Megan Fox, Matthew Fassbender, Will Arnett, Michael Shannon, Wes Bentley, Aidan Quinn, Tom Wopat and Lance Reddick.
Directed by Jimmy Hayward.

Its best quality? The closing credits start at 73 minutes.

I knew it would be bad, and on some level in certain scenes, it was enjoyably bad, but this made Wild Wild West look like a modern classic by comparison.

No real fault of Josh Brolin. He grunts through the movie fine as the deformed Jonah Hex, but sometimes that grizzled attitude sounded like he was doing a Sling Blade impression. Jonah's a Confederate soldier whose wife and son were killed by an evil soldier Turnbull (John Malkovich, in one of his sleepwalking roles). Jonah now has an ability to talk to the dead, and this comes to his advantage when it comes to seeking revenge against Turnbull.

Pres. Grant himself requests Jonah hunt him down. At first I had a "what is he doing here?" moment when I saw Aidan Quinn as Grant. That turned into a "what is HE doing here??" when I saw this his weaselly right-hand man was being played by Will Arnett. I had a few more of those moments when Tom "Luke Duke" Wopat and then Wes Bentley showed up (in a worse role in a worse movie than Ghost Rider. Oh Hollywood, have you no pity for the teenagers from American Beauty?)

Megan Fox is just there as one of them saloon prosty-toots.

I would have been furious if I'd paid theater prices to see this.