Nerds That Geek Movie Review: ‘Jonah Hex’

Written by Scott Edwards 

They say that a man looking for revenge should dig two graves, one for his enemy and one for himself. There could be a couple ways at looking at this, but if you do it right, you only need the one grave. But being driven by revenge is not a way to live life, especially if you are trying to come back from what has been done to you. Settling a score may seem like a good quest to have, but when you accomplish it, what else do you have to live for? I understand that there are things that you can never let go of, but when you let that run your life, you will be missing out on so much more.

Seeing his family burned alive before his very eyes, Jonah Hex has been branded by his old General who is looking for revenge of his own. With his son dead by the hand of Hex, Quentin Turnbull wants him to walk the earth for the rest of his days remembering who took everything that he loved away from him. Next to death, Hex is brought back from the brink by a group of Indians, but it has given Hex a curse while walking the earth, he can talk with the dead. With one foot in reality and one foot in the afterlife, Hex is prepared to find and kill Turnbull for what he has done, but hearing that his old General died in a fire, Hex is forced to find a new path and the life of a bounty hunter suits him just fine.

Moving from town to town, Hex is able to kill the wicked for a reward, but when the lawman in a small town refuses to pay up and threatens to turn him in, things get ugly. Destroying the town, Hex is on his own once again and with only one person willing to take him in, he knows that things will work out as they always do. But his time away from civilization is short lived when he hears that Quentin Turnbull is alive and the government needs his help in hunting down the General down before he is able to destroy the United States of America on the Fourth of July.  Just hearing the name of his old General eats at Hex’s soul and even though he is not looking to save the nation, killing his old foe would be payment enough.

As military trains and depots are knocked off, the government believes that Turnbull is behind all of the action. With a secret weapon in development, but never completed, Turnbull is going to build it and take out the nation on its anniversary. Being able to get away with murder during the war, Turnbull is ready to take it to the next level and being able to build the weapon that can flatten cities with a single shelling, he could not be happier. With a test run complete, Turnbull has set his sights on Washington D.C. to prove his power over the nation, but when he finds out that Hex is on his trail, his plans are forced to accelerate. As the two men want nothing more than to watch each other die, one of their dreams is destined to come true.

It might have been a bit before its time to come to the big screen and might have been better received alongside the other superhero movies out right now, but this is a darn good story.  One of the things that I liked most about Jonah Hex is his internal battle between right and wrong.  Even though he does not always do the right thing, he makes it work for him and if anyone dares get in his way, he is not afraid to mow them down. The term anti-hero is used for Hex and for good reason, since heroes have one moral code to live by, Hex does not and will do anything to get the job done. Now, I did not watch this movie when it came out in theaters and have been trying to watch it off and on for the past three years since it has found its way into my collection.  I can see the dislike for this movie, and especially since it came out when the superhero movies were starting to hit their stride, but Hex is far from your conventional hero and lives by only one code, his own.

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