"Slipshod" doesn't begin to express the haphazard approach that its team of screenwriters and clueless director (Jimmy Hayward) take in making a pejoratively "cartoonish" movie.
Most upsetting is the utter waste of estimable talents like Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Michael Shannon, and Michael Fassbender. Rather than containing a cohesive storyline with developed characters, "Jonah Hex" is an abomination of disjointed apocryphal elements set during the Civil War.
Brolin plays the title character, a Civil War soldier-turned-bounty-hunter who killed his best friend when said friend drew his pistol on Jonah for reasons that remain fuzzy — much like every other glossed-over detail.
Said best friend was the brother of one hot-tempered Quentin Turnbull (Malkovich), who, in turn, burned down Jonah's farmhouse with his wife and son in it before branding his own initials in Jonah's right cheek for good measure.
The gruesomely disfigured Jonah — he since burned away the initials with an axe blade — is now able to communicate with the dead. As such, Jonah is the only man General Grant (Aiden Quinn) can turn to bring down the nefarious Turnbull, who is not as deceased as previously believed. It seems QT has wrangled up some funky pre-Industrial Revolution weapons of mass destruction with which he plans to divide and conquer the nation.
Megan Fox is the coldly sexual prostitute Lilah who helps Jonah get his courage up when she isn't getting in dust-ups with less mannered, but more attractive, clientele. There isn't a single reason to see this movie.
Rated PG-13. 81 mins.
