Jonah Hex (film)

Jonah Hex is a 2010 American action fantasy western film loosely based on the DC Comics character Jonah Hex. Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, the film is directed by Jimmy Hayward and stars Josh Brolin in the title role, along with John Malkovich, Megan Fox, Michael Fassbender, Will Arnett, Michael Shannon, and Aidan Quinn.

The film was released on June 18, 2010, receiving universal negative reception from critics and performing poorly at the box office.

Plot
During the American Civil War, Jonah Hex served as a Confederate cavalryman until his commanding officer, Quentin Turnbull, a general for the Confederates ordered him to burn down a hospital. Hex refused and had to kill his best friend, Turnbull's son Jeb. Hex later turns Turnbull and his men in to the Union military. After the war, a vengeful Turnbull and his right-hand man, Burke, a psychopath who often takes pleasure in killing or tormenting others, tie up Hex and force him to watch as his house is burned down with his wife and son inside. Turnbull then brands Hex's face with his initials, "QT", and leaves him tied to a cross to die of thirst or exposure.

Days later, a Native American tribe finds Jonah and revive him. While they did manage to bring Jonah, for the most part, back from the dead, it is stated that they couldn't bring all of him back. As a result Jonah acquired the ability to, as long as he maintains physical contact with the corpse, temporarily resurrect and communicate with the dead, bringing the corpse physically and mentally back to its condition prior to death. (Apparently, only Jonah sees them restored like that. To everyone else, the corpses continue to seem decayed and lifeless). It is also explained: the fresher the dead body, the quicker it begins to burn up as it is being touched. Once contact is broken, the corpse instantaneously reverts to its former, lifeless condition.

When Turnbull apparently dies in a hotel fire, Hex satisfies his hunger for vengeance by turning to bounty hunting.

In 1876, Hex rides into the town of Stunk Crick with four dead outlaws and demands his bounty, only to realize that the mayor and sheriff have no intention of paying, intending instead to kill Hex for his own bounty. Hex instead kills them and several sheriff's deputies, collects his bounty from the dead mayor's pockets, and leaves. In another part of the country, Turnbull, alive and well, orchestrates the hijacking of a train carrying components of a classified weapon, slaughtering its military guards and civilian passengers alike. When informed of the theft, President Grant surmises that Turnbull is planning a terrorist attack for July 4, during the celebration of the American centennial. Grant instructs Army Lieutenant Grass to find Hex and hire him to stop Turnbull.

Jonah goes to a brothel and spends the night with Lilah, a sex worker. As Jonah prepares to leave the next morning, Grass' men burst in and tell Jonah that Turnbull is still alive. They show him a captured thug from the train hijacking who told them Turnbull is headed northwest, before dying during interrogation. But Jonah briefly resurrects the man and learns that he has no knowledge of Turnbull's whereabouts; the best he can do is tell who recruited him: ex-Colonel Slocum, who is running an illegal death match pavilion in South Carolina, to the southeast.

With the help of a corrupt Washington aristocrat, Adleman Lusk, Turnbull tracks down and steals the remaining components of the weapon he is seeking. When Hex confronts Slocum in South Carolina, Slocum refuses to talk, sarcastically telling Hex to ask Turnbull's dead son, Jeb, where his father is. Jonah then overpowers Slocum's men and throws Slocum himself into the ring, to be killed by one of his own monstrous brawlers. After setting fire to the ring, Jonah frees a dog being tormented by Slocum's handlers, which starts to follow him around. In a cemetery in Gettysburg, Jonah digs up and resurrects Jeb Turnbull. Jeb then viciously attacks Jonah twice (while he was beating him the first time Jonah had let his arm go), remembering that Jonah was the one responsible for his death. Jonah then apologizes for killing Jeb, and says that his father has to be stopped before he murders more people. Jeb reveals that his father is at Fort Resurrection, and then returns to the afterlife.

After entering the fort, Hex sees plans for the "super-weapon" that Turnbull has stolen and assembled. In another part of the fort, Turnbull explains to Burke that the weapon was designed by Eli Whitney for the U.S. military, but they refrained from building it after realizing its destructive power. Jonah confronts Turnbull, killing several of his men, but Turnbull escapes and Hex receives a near-fatal wound from Burke, but is able to escape. He collapses in a field, hovering near death for several days. Turnbull, anticipating that Hex will return, sends Burke to bring him "something Hex loves." Burke kidnaps Lilah from the brothel. Turnbull test-fires the "super-weapon" on a small town in Georgia, which is leveled to the ground, killing hundreds of civilians. When President Grant receives the news, his aide reports that they have no idea where in the country Turnbull will strike, and they lack sufficient military manpower to guard all the centennial celebrations. Hex is found by his Native American allies, who perform a ceremony that heals Jonah. Back on his feet, he relays a message to Lt. Grass that Turnbull plans to attack Washington, D.C., then rides to Independence Harbor alone to stop him.

Meanwhile Turnbull kills Lusk even after helping find the components for the "super-weapon". When Jonah attempts to infiltrate the harbor where Turnbull's ironclad warship is anchored, Burke spots him and attacks him. After being beaten around and then pinned to the ground, Jonah gets a cheap shot on Burke by using some nearby flames. Jonah kills Burke, stating that he has avenged his wife, then uses his powers to bring Burke back from the dead in order to incinerate his body again to satisfy his vengeance for his son.

Jonah prepares to shoot Turnbull, but Turnbull holds Lilah at gunpoint and forces Jonah to surrender. Turnbull chains Jonah and Lilah in the hold of his ship and tells Jonah that he wants him to watch as the Union is destroyed. The ship leaves harbor and steams toward Washington, D.C. A monitor commanded by Lt. Grass intercepts Turnbull, but is quickly destroyed with the weapon, which has been mounted on the bow.

In the hold, Lilah picks her handcuffs and frees herself and Jonah. She holds off the guards with two pistols while Jonah rushes up to the deck to stop Turnbull, who gains the upper hand and orders the weapon to fire. The weapon blankets Washington with a volley of delay-action bomb shells, and Turnbull gives the order for the trigger shell to be launched. Hex and Turnbull's fight then takes them down into the engine. Hex is nearly killed until Lilah finds his ax and throws it down in the engine room. Hex then throws his tomahawk into the weapon's belt feeder, trapping the trigger shell. He then brutally beats Turnbull and traps his neck in a gear, before meeting up with Lilah. The pair jump into the water just as the trigger shell ignites in the engine room, killing Turnbull and all his men. The next day, President Grant rewards Jonah with a large sum of money, a full pardon, and offers him a job as Sheriff of the United States. Jonah declines, but assures the president that if they need him, they'll be able to find him. Lilah is waiting for him outside the White House, and they leave the city together.

In the last scene, Jonah visits Jeb's grave to apologize for having to kill his father, then rides out of the cemetery with his dog.

Cast

 * Josh Brolin as Jonah Hex, a disfigured bounty hunter. Brolin initially hated the script, but changed his mind, growing to like its tongue-in-cheek tone.
 * John Malkovich as Quentin Turnbull, the man who killed Jonah Hex's family and disfigured Jonah.
 * Megan Fox as Tallulah Black/Lilah, a gun-wielding prostitute and Jonah Hex's love interest.
 * Michael Fassbender as Burke, a bowler hat-wearing, tattooed, psychopathic Irishman and Turnbull's right-hand man. Fassbender likens his character to that of The Riddler and Malcolm McDowell's performance in A Clockwork Orange but mainly said he found his character when he tried on the derby bowler.
 * Michael Shannon as Doctor Cross Williams: The ringleader of a gladiator circus. The studio plans to have Williams in a recurring character in any sequels to the film.
 * Will Arnett as Lieutenant Grass, a Union soldier who enlists Jonah Hex as a bounty hunter.
 * Aidan Quinn as Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th President of the United States (Quinn was only on set for three days for this role).
 * Lance Reddick as Smith, an armorer of sorts who supplies Hex with his new weapons.
 * John Gallagher, Jr. as Lieutenant Evan
 * Tom Wopat as Colonel Slocum
 * Wes Bentley as Adleman Lusk
 * Julia Jones as Cassie
 * Jeffrey Dean Morgan (uncredited) as Jeb Turnbull
 * Mastodon guitarist/vocalist Brent Hinds also made a small cameo appearance.

Prior to Brolin's casting, actor Thomas Jane petitioned the studio for the role, hiring a make-up artist to give him the appearance of Jonah Hex. Jane voiced Hex in the 2010 animated short DC Showcase: Jonah Hex.

Production
In 2000, 20th Century Fox developed a one-hour adaptation based on the character to television with producers Akiva Goldsman and Robert Zappia involved, but the project did not make it to production. By July 2007, Warner Bros. Pictures held feature film rights to the character and sought to produce a film. Goldsman paired with Andrew Lazar as producers, and Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor adapted the screenplay, which adopted an incarnation of the comic books that combined the Western genre with supernatural elements. In October 2008, Josh Brolin entered talks to be cast as Jonah Hex under the direction of Neveldine and Taylor. In November 2008, Neveldine and Taylors stepped down from being directors due to creative differences with the studio. The studio explored the possibility of hiring Andy Fickman or McG and by January 2009, it chose Jimmy Hayward to direct Jonah Hex. By the following February, Brolin was set to star alongside John Malkovich, who was cast as the antagonist Quentin Turnbull. Legendary Pictures paired with Warner Bros. Pictures to co-finance the film. Filming began in Louisiana in April 2009. Once filming wrapped, the cast immediately flew to the 2009 San Diego Comic Con to promote the movie in a fully packed panel.

Music
On September 2, 2009, Ain't It Cool News reported that heavy metal band Mastodon were scoring the film. Troy Sanders, bassist/vocalist of Mastodon, on their contribution to the film:

"Some of it was heavy, some of it was very moody," Sanders said. "A lot of it was spacey, Melvins B-sides, Pink Floyd-like, surreal outer space, like Neil Young's Dead Man. Swirling, nausea music." Sanders added that the collaboration felt natural: "Since day one, we've always written albums thinking the music was the score of a movie. Then we'll create the lyrics or storyline on top of that, as if we're writing the dialog to match the movie's cinematography." The soundtrack is an hour-long instrumental, including five full songs and numerous smaller musical themes. Selections were added to scenes in the film by composer John Powell (Shrek, The Bourne Identity), and others will be adapted for the London Orchestra for exceptionally epic moments. "We wrote variations on themes for each character, different variables for a bunch of riffs: faster, slower, heavier, lighter," Sanders explained. "It's the Darth Vader approach."

Release
Jonah Hex was released in the United States on June 18, 2010, the same day as the release of Toy Story 3 (ironically, the director Jimmy Hayward had worked on the first two Toy Story films). A trailer was attached with A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Critical response
The film has been panned by critics. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 12% based on 142 reviews, with an average score of 3.4/10. The site's critical consensus is: "Josh Brolin gives it his best shot, but he can't keep the short, unfocused Jonah Hex from collapsing on the screen."

Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club gave the film a rare "F" rating, stating "the 81 minutes (including credits) of Jonah Hex footage that made it to the screen look like something assembled under a tight deadline, and possibly under the influence." Roger Ebert wrote: "It's based on some DC Comics characters, which may explain the way the plot jumps around. We hear a lot about graphic novels, but this is more of a graphic anthology of strange occult ideas."

Awards
The film was named "Worst Picture" of the year by the Houston Film Critics Society at their 2010 awards ceremony. It was also given two nominations at the 31st Golden Raspberry Awards: Worst Actress for Megan Fox and Worst Screen Couple for Josh Brolin's face and Megan Fox's accent.

Box office
Jonah Hex severely under-performed, opening at #7 during its debut weekend with only $5,379,365 in 2,825 theaters, averaging $1,904 per theater. It was overshadowed by Toy Story 3, which opened on the same weekend. On its second weekend the film only managed to gross $1,627,442, falling to #10. The film ended its theatrical run on August 12, 2010, grossing only $10,547,117 in total on a $47 million production budget. Due to the film's poor domestic take, it was not widely released internationally, grossing less than $400,000 outside the United States.

Home media
The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray October 12, 2010 in a bare-bones release.