★ 8 / 10
Joyous Outrageous Trash. Hobo with a Shotgun is
John Chard
Joyous Outrageous Trash. Hobo with a Shotgun is directed by Jason Eisener and written by John Davies. It stars Rutger Hauer, Brian Downey, Gregory Smith, Molly…
Joyous Outrageous Trash.
Hobo with a Shotgun is directed by Jason Eisener and written by John Davies. It stars Rutger Hauer, Brian Downey, Gregory Smith, Molly Dunsworth, Robb Wells and Nick Bateman. Music is by Alexander Rosborough and cinematography by Karim Hussain.
A homeless hobo (Hauer) hitches a freight train lift into Hope Town and finds a city imploding with corruption, violence, drugs and sexual deviance. Initially trying to keep out of the way and get on with his meagre existence, the hobo finally cracks and decides he can no longer sit back and watch such lawlessness. Helping himself to a shotgun from the local pawn shop, hobo goes on a one man killing crusade.
Born out of a trailer that accompanied the original full release of Rodriguez/Tarrantino's Grindhouse venture, Hobo with a Shotgun is horror exploitation made with abundant glee. Blending Death Wish like vigilantism with 70s and 80s styled schlock, Jason Eisener has crafted an utterly tasteless, yet wonderfully entertaining piece of cinema. Violence is broad and completely bloody, as heads are exploded, bodies punctured and characters killed in a series of increasingly strange ways, while the characters that inhabit Hope Town are downright nasty and equally as weird. From bully boy Tom Cruise homage brother bastards Ivan & Slick, to a paedophile Santa Claus, and on to The Plague -two metal suited fetish killers sent to take out the hobo - it's welcome to bizarreville for sure.
It's all driven by a great turn from Hauer, who manages to play it with raw and subtle emotion, even as the rage takes control of him and he deals death as surely as he delivers a memorable line. Around him are a bunch of no mark actors, but this works in the films' favour, the material doesn't need star wattage to drive the motors, besides which, you will undoubtedly come out of the film remembering the characters these actors have played rather than the actors in the garbs.
Shot in suitably lurid Technicolor by Hussain and featuring an on the money score by Rosborough, all the elements for a Grindhouse feature fall into place. This basically does what the title suggests it will, yes it may at times veer towards crassness, and what social comment depth intended gets lost as Eisener gets carried away with the carnage. But under examination this is a whole bunch of fun that's made for adults who remember the movies from a past decade that this homages and parodies with devilish aplomb. 8/10
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★ 7 / 10
Silly and gruesome but oddly entertaining
jamesrupert2014
A homicidal hobo (a well-cast Rutger Hauer) drifts into a hellish town with the intent of purchasing a lawnmower but buys a shotgun instead and proceeds to…
A homicidal hobo (a well-cast Rutger Hauer) drifts into a hellish town with the intent of purchasing a lawnmower but buys a shotgun instead and proceeds to messily clean up the streets. The film is an over-the-top parody of grindhouse films inspired by one of the 'fake trailers' in the Tarantino and Rodriguez-helmed 'Grindhouse' (2007; itself a parody of the obscure genre). Full of gleeful blood and gore, Hobo won't be to all tastes but is fast moving and splatterly fun. Shot in Nova Scotia, one of the first sanguineous scenes sees the bloody demise of Robb Wells (Trailer Park Boys' 'Ricky') and the lead villain ('The Drake') is Canadian actor Brian Downey (Stanley Tweedle in 'Lexx' (1997)). Cartoonish at times, the film sometimes has the look of a late-night commercial (especially in scenes involving Ivan and Slick, the Drake's murderous sons) but some of the imagery is memorable (in a bargain-basement way) - I especially liked 'The Plague', a pair of armoured, demonic hitmen who appear to battling a giant squid at one point. Good low-brow, high-concept fun for the right crowd (probably boys of all ages) at the right time (probably after midnight).
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20 guage ? What is he shooting ? birds ?