LOGIN
REGISTER
RSS
HOME
It was a little over the top and not quite cartoonish enough to be OK. Almost but...
Hobo With a Shotgun presents a searing, unforgettable social comment about a culture in decline. With brutal honesty and rigid adherence to cinema verite, it peels back the layers of class indifference to reveal the despairing soul of America, left to die on the streets and crying out for…
Okay, I’m fucking with you. It’s about Rutger Hauer blowing holes in people. Better?
Director Jason Eisener drinks deep from the cup of Tarantino in his tale of a destitute bum (Hauer) who arrives in the worst town in the whole wide world, only to launch a roaring rampage of revenge thanks to the 12 gauge that he (legally) purchases from a pawn shop. He’s fighting the corrupt forces of criminal kingpin The Drake (Brian Downey), who likes to snap modified manhole covers around people’s necks, trap them in the middle of the street, and pull their heads off like a rotten tree stump. His nogoodnik sons (Gregory Smith and Nick Bateman) engage in random acts of butchery involving ice skates, gull-wing doors and baseball bats with freaking razors in them. They own the cops, they own the streets, and they own the bevy of naked girls who dance around in fountains of their victims’ blood. But you know who they don’t own? The hobo. And his shotgun.
Eisener understands the patent absurdity of his premise, but at times, he plays things too broadly. Every character is ridiculously one-note, and every scene embodies acts of purest, blackest evil. When the jokes fail, they fail spectacularly: leaving nothing but unpleasant gore shots in their wake. Thankfully, that doesn’t happen very often, and once the film finds its groove, it never lets up. Eisener finds a seemingly infinite number of new ways to reinvent the basic scenario, as Hauer blasts his way through an increasingly scary series of villains on the way to his ultimate adversaries: The Guys Wearing Shotgun-Proof Armor. Along the way, he gets help from the ubiquitous hooker with a heart of gold (Molly Dunsworth) and a crowd of local chowderheads who constantly vacillate on which demographic they’d like to disembowel.
Hauer possesses the thespian fortitude to maintain a straight face throughout and his sheer wacko dedication forms the delirious thread to pull us through the film. That lets Eisener play around with the exploitation elements he both embraces and sends up: ramping the gratuitous bloodshed to the maximum before turning his hero loose for some righteous payback. We’re supposed to enjoy both halves of the equation, but Hobo With a Shotgun retains enough sly self-knowingness to gently chide us in the process. That it can do so without any seeming hypocrisy is a testament to the director’s confidence in his material.
Granted, “gentle” is not a word you will often hear associated with this film. Hobo With a Shotgun pushes every button it can find, then pounds them into the panel, then smashes the panel with a wrecking ball. We’re treated to people eating glass, people disemboweled with lawn mowers and – in my favorite moment -- people stabbing other people with shards of their own bones. It’s all barking mad, of course, but if you love vigilante films without quite taking them seriously, it’s a hell of a lot of fun. In fact, I’d happily put it alongside the Grindhouse gang for a fun-filled triple feature. The hobo -- and his shotgun – would feel right at home in their company.
It was a little over the top and not quite cartoonish enough to be OK. Almost but...
This sounds freaking priceless! Loved Grindhouse! when i saw posters for this I immediately started getting that vibe...i mean, c'mon...HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN??? how can that possibly go wrong? :P
I saw this a while back as it was a Canadian flick and released in my small city opening week. I will start off by saying that this movie is definitely not for everyone....in fact will not be appreciated by most people. I am actually very surprised by your review Rob, you have restored my faith in you for the fact that you enjoyed something like this. I really did not expect a good reaction lol
Hobo With a Shotgun is everything it sets out to be. Campy and over the top with terrible acting and rediculous villains....a perfect tribute to low budget B rated Grindhouse films. Hauer is awesome and the movie is ridiculously fun, how he played such a serious and perfect role in the midst of such an off the wall concept and cartoonish gore around every corner is beyond me. It was so bad that I didnt want to like it, but I couldnt stop watching and laughing and enjoying every minute.
*Minor Spoiler*
The scene when everyone starts hunting the homeless and the one bum hides in a cardboard box only to be crushed by the buchet of a backhoe was worth the price of admission itself
*End Spoiler*
I'd like to check this movie out. Sadly, after checking online I could only find five theatres in North America that were playing it. Of those, three are in Canada. In the USA, one of them is in Austin, which is "only" four hours away. If I'm driving all the way to Austin to see a movie, there damn well better be a Q&A afterwards. I'll wait for it on Netflix.
HAHAHA!! Rob, you really had me going there with the start of your review. That was genuinely hilarious. Props to you, buddy!
When I saw a poster for this I didn't believe it, I thought it was a teaser for another grindhouse flick but that kind of news would have made it on here long before. After reading some surprisingly flattering reviews I don't think this can be ignored and it looks like an instant cult-classic that might atually be really really good! And it might not, but a B from Rob regarding a film like this can only mean hit!