On this episode of Bad Dads Film Review, the team reviews Jonah Hex (2010) — DC’s supernatural western starring Josh Brolin as the scarred bounty hunter, John Malkovich as revenge-villain Quentin Turnbull, and Megan Fox as Lilah/Tallulah, depending on which bit of the film you believe.
In this episode
- Dan’s late pick and the argument over whether Jonah Hex counts as the midweek movie
- “Johan Hex” and the accidental Scandinavian spin-off nobody asked for
- The brutally rushed origin story: dead family, branded face, Native American resurrection smoke, and crow-adjacent powers
- Jonah Hex as a supernatural bounty hunter who can temporarily revive corpses for information
- The horse-mounted Gatling guns and the film’s steampunk Wild West weaponry
- Megan Fox’s immaculate Wild West prostitute character and the noble-prostitute trope
- Michael Fassbender’s bowler hat, neck tattoo, Irish accent, and career-survival appearance
- John Malkovich’s oddly flat Turnbull performance and his plan to attack America with glowing cannonball super-weapons
- The confusing resurrection sequence, crow-from-the-mouth imagery, and anticlimactic final showdown
- Comparisons with Ghost Rider, Cowboys & Aliens, Wild Wild West, Preacher, The Crow, The Dark Knight, and The Outlaw Josey Wales
- The film’s disastrous box office: around $47m reported production budget versus around $10.5m worldwide return, before marketing
Bad Dads consensus
- Runtime: mercifully short
- Cast: bizarrely stacked
- Plot coherence: extremely questionable
- Visual ideas: occasional flashes of something better
- Performances: mostly phoned in, with Brolin just about surviving it
- Best feature: it ends quickly
- Overall: not a recommend, though Dan resists calling it one of the worst ever and Cris may still watch it out of sheer curiosity
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