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About Jon
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Let’s go to the movies! I love the movie experience, study what happens on the screen and am writing about it to help you with your movie going decisions. Hopefully something in the blogging of a film’s big elements – screenwriting, cinematography, directing, acting, visual effects, sound, and editing (and sometimes automobiles) – will help movie fans discern where their entertainment dollars should go. I’ve been blogging about movies on 99x.com since April 2008 and have been listening to 99x since moving to Atlanta in 1996. I’ve worked on the Olympics and short films that have appeared at Sundance and other film festivals in the U.S., Europe, and Australia. I have a Master’s degree in film from Florida State University and regard film school as one of the best experiences of my life.
I currently live in Atlanta with my wife and two labs; love baseball, music, family and friends, good food, and of course movies. Just to blog down thoughts from an eyewitness perspective I avoid reading other movie blogs or reviews on a new release until I’ve posted my own. All references to box office results or cast and crew are culled from boxofficeguru.com, boxofficemojo.com, or IMDB.com. Wikipedia is not used in the writing of this blog. Follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/jonlamoreaux for additional movie updates.
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Jon's Movie Blog
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Jun
18
Written by:
Jon Lamoreaux
6/18/2010 7:29 PM
 This is the oddest little comic book action film I’ve ever seen and I say little because the running time feels like an hour. Because of the time to money ratio alone I’d say it’s a definite no go as far as dollars you’ll spend at the theater. But when it comes around to DVD or cable I’d say check it out mostly because of its bizarre Civil War setting and the unlikely hero of Josh Brolin’s character, Jonah Hex, a DC Comic character on the South’s side of the war come to life through death, who speaks to the dead, and who yields two rotating Gatling guns on his horse as if the animal were a Marine Super Cobra helicopter over Al-Qaeda territory on the boarder of Pakistan. If it weren’t for the fast pace of the film, and Brolin himself, star of W (2008) and No Country for Old Men (2007), the film would severely suck. As it is though, it stands on two very wobbly legs.
The Story: Fighting for the South in the American Civil War, Jonah Hex goes against his general, Quinton Turnbull played by John Malkovich because he believes some pillaging, raping, and murdering Turnbull does is unnecessary. Somehow Turnbull’s family gets killed in the way and Turnbull gets revenge on Hex by killing Hex’s wife and son. Hex, left for dead and deformed by Turnbull’s initialed cattle brand, is saved by Native Americans who with the help of crows save Hex from death. Their special brand of revival leaves him with an uncanny ability to touch the dead and bring them to life for a short time just so he can find answers to the questions only the dead have. Mostly those questions revolve around Turnbull and where Hex can find him. Turns out Turnbull has his hands on the World’s first weapon of mass destruction and he’s getting ready to turn it loose on Washington D.C. President, I’m assuming Grant, played by Aiden Quinn (my first time seeing him a big film since Legends of the Fall (1994)) gets involved because of the threat to the nation and hires Hex to bring Turnbull to justice.
The Goods: The hunt for Turnbull, then, is quick and includes a raising of dead by Hex to get the answers he’s looking for. It’s a cool concept, and crows seem to make their presence increasingly more with every encounter with death. Hex even envisions his own death which involves a duel of fists and canes and hatchets with Turnbull. Though Hex likes to use the weapons of his James Bond, Q-like gadget man, played by Lance Reddick who looks like Woody Strode from John Ford’s Westerns The Trial of Sergeant Rutledge (1960) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), Hex’s weapon of choice is always a throwing ax.
Fire is omnipresent in the film as well and creates a unique motif, one that suggest there’s always a fire brewing in Hex, and that hell is always just a step behind him. This film reminded me of The Crow (1994), not just because of Hex’s bird friends but because of the theme, man come back to life to revenge the innocent, that sort of thing. It’s better than The Crow, in my opinion, and better than Wild, Wild West (1999) with Kevin Kline and Will Smith as it’s also a Western to a certain degree and calls to mind the work of earlier Sam Raimi films Darkman (1990), Army of Darkness (1992), and The Quick and the Dead (1995). Certainly not in execution, but in the bravado of trying to achieve what Raimi achieved in those films. You have to give credit to director Jimmy Heyward for trying. Heyward, by the way, was an animator on Pixar’s Finding Nemo (2003). Some of his talent or eye for animation thereof makes its way to the screen in Hex with flashy comic book renderings of Hex and the other characters near the opening of the film and at key points along the way. The additional artwork is used to sort of hyper extend the ghoulish superpowers of Jonah Hex.
Also helping Hex is a power chord score by the band Mastodon. I kept thinking it was Filter, or Tool, but it turned out to be Mastodon in the credits and what they do with guitar chords for Hex is truly noteworthy. One of the best aspects of the film. Giving Hex the missing dimension he needs by simply adding a dark, electric guitar part to his demeanor.
The Flaws: I like just about anything John Malkovich does, however, but he’s a distraction as the bad guy in Jonah Hex. His character never really has the time to fully develop so he’s more of a stereotyped antagonist more than anything. We find out what evils he’s done to the hero, but who he truly is and where he comes from, why he does what he does is never revealed, only hinted at. And sorry to say John, but you’re a poor choice to be physically matched in battle with Brolin. Which is why they used stunt doubles in fisticuff scenes, and unusually close close-ups during altercations with Hex. As if to keep Malkovich distanced from stunt work on the set, but to suggest he’s there in the mix with a close shot inserted here and there.
Same miscasting goes for Megan Fox playing a prostitute named Lilah who is a beautiful young girl but compared to all the dirt and grime of the main characters and townies in the film, the dirty South if you will as it’s portrayed in the film, she stands out like a sore thumb, granted a pretty thumb but sore nonetheless. Glistening and glossy and so fresh and so clean clean with terrible speaking lines and no back-story, or like Malkovich’s character no development, we’re left feeling neither sympathy or empathy, or any feelings for Lilah. She’s reduced to eye candy to gaze at and that’s kind of disrespectful of her use. That she can probably do a heck of a lot better than she’s given credit for if only pushed in that direction. For Hex’s development and for the further good of the plot.
The running time of the film and poor story development ultimately are its major flaws and because of it all of the above suffers.
The Call: An interesting twist on the Western and Civil War genre but stow the dough, wait for it on DVD, Blu-ray or cable. And hope the sequels, if any, are better developed.
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, disturbing images and sexual content. Running time is a paltry 80 minutes but I think it’s more like something in the low 70s.
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