Jonah Hex ( 2010 )

Starring: Josh Brolin, Megan Fox, John Malkovich,  Michael Fassbender, & Will Arnett

Directed By Jimmy Hayward

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1075747/

Here's how you know Josh Brolin has become a movie star: "Jonah Hex" may not be much with him, but without him? Perish the thought. Perish it, throw an ax in its heart, then burn it to a crisp.

Brolin is not exactly being challenged here, but he is a very droll fellow, and without his taciturn delivery of some rudimentary zingers, typically delivered after throwing an ax into someone's heart, you'd be stuck wondering what's up with John Malkovich's amusing attempt at a Southern dialect. Or wondering how this short (about 80 minutes minus credits), sour and absurdly violent picture got by with a PG-13 rating. Did the ratings board members all have jury duty the day of the screening?

"Jonah Hex" is the latest DC Comics title to reach the screen. It is best suited to the jaded teenage children of weapons manufacturers. At one point Jonah shreds his enemies with Gatling guns attached to his horse's saddle; at another, he demonstrates a dynamite-loaded crossbow.

In print, John Albano and Tony DeZuniga's tales of an ex-Confederate bounty hunter who has a way of communicating with corpses began in the early 1970s, and soon started wigging out, story wise, in terms of time travel and such. The film's scenario sticks to 1876, focusing on Jonah's quest to kill the insane yet rather dull terrorist played by Malkovich, because he's the one who burned his family alive and then branded Jonah with a terrible branding iron. The adversary plans on destroying America. Director Jimmy Hayward apparently planned on destroying his film with hackwork; he never seems to know how long to sustain a shot (usually not long enough) or where to put the camera in relation to the actors' faces.

Yet if Hayward is, in fact, the one who cast Brolin, well ... that was smart. He nearly saves "Jonah Hex." The film also boasts Michael Fassbender, so good as the Trevor Howard-esque film critic turned Basterd in "Inglourious Basterds." Here he's a gleeful Irish killer in the employ of Malkovich's dour evil genius. Megan Fox and her "feminine wiles and whatnot," as Brolin refers to them, portray the role of Lilah the courtesan, whose cleavage threatens to tear north and south asunder.

Politically "Jonah Hex" is pure Libertarianism, showcasing a hero who spouts off about hypocrites in Washington, D.C., and getting the government off his back. The action rarely relents. It's also rarely interesting, but if for whatever reason you enjoyed the film version of "Wild Wild West," which shares some story traits with this revisionist historical fantasy, you may forgive "Jonah Hex" its soullessness.

( * * ) Mr. What?