Hobo with a Shotgun

Call it grindhouse, exploitation, revenge, garbage or whatever movie - Hobo with a Shotgun is one of those movies you just can like/love to watch if you have a very BIG notion towards bad taste. Hobo with a Shotgun: no p.c.-blabla at all and a guilt pleasure for sure spiced up with a good sweep of good ol' bloody gore - and you get Rutger Hauer too! Yummy.

After using a shotgun hanging in a pawnshop to stop an armed robbery, a homeless man turns celebrated vigilante, much to the annoyance of the corrupt police force in this Canadian action thriller. The film began life as a fake movie trailer and watching the trailer and film back-to-back, it is quite remarkable how much the filmmakers manage to stretch the original premise. The story is hardly airtight with unanswered questions about why the store has loaded weapons on display and how the he keeps accumulating countless bullets really standing out, but it is all a lot of fun with Rutger Hauer perfectly cast in the lead role, several imaginative gory death/maim scenes, plus the filmmakers' acute eye for colour. With lots of neon purple, pink, yellow and other glaring colours throughout, the film possesses a deliciously exaggerated visual look that perfectly complements its over-the-top story. A little too much time is spent on Hauer befriending and conversing with a prostitute who (of course) has a heart of gold, but the prostitute subplot gives the film a welcome 'Taxi Driver'-like quality, with Hauer trying to clean the streets much like Travis Bickle. Where the film really rises above the ordinary though is in its acute depiction of a society that neglects and abuses the homeless. Sure, the way they are mistreated is really overdone, but the satirical edge still sticks.

He's a guardian angel walking the streets, a vicious protector of the weak and innocent. He is the hobo with a shotgun. He is Rutger Hauer. Hobo with a Shotgun is the story of... well, the title pretty much says it all. Bad guys led by a enjoyably psychotic gang lord named Drake dominate the unnamed city that is the setting of the movie. Drake and his two equally messed up offspring, Slick and Ivan, terrorize the people of this tortured city uncontested until the arrival of Hauer's Hobo, intent on using his saved nickels and dimes to buy a rusty old lawnmower that will surly start him on a honest, rewarding career. Sadly for Mr. Hobo, destiny has other plans, and our hero uses his mower money to purchase a old pump action shotgun with the intent of cleaning up the city. Along the way he is aided by a prostitute named Abby (a stunningly beautiful Molly Dunsworth) who has an affinity for destruction.

This films greatest strength is its oddball tone and freakishly beautiful bursts of violence that occur periodically through the movie. The chunks of the movie that involve crazy old Rutger Hauer blasting through waves of baddies in brutal fashion and the bizarre acts of violence perpetrated by the films antagonists are easily the highlights, and they never fail to delight with their brilliant, twisted gore effects. Director Jason Eisener is a master of cinematic displays of blood and guts, and god bless him for it because it takes the film to a whole other level. I would love to provide an example for your reading pleasure, but tragically spoiling any part of this movie is a crime to heinous to contemplate committing. Just know you will leave the theater feeling like a changed man after the brutal displays of carnage presented.

Unfortunately, the film is ultimately brought down by some poor scenes that stretched on for agonizing lengths. Many of these involve our homeless protagonist ranting senselessly to his lovely caretaker Abby, others involve the already hyperbolically inflated villains plotting the death of the Hobo. Perhaps what is most tragic is that Hauer, with the exception several brilliant lines in the films third act, never gets a chance to truly shine as the shotgun wielding hero, a huge disappointment considering the potential he possessed. Regardless of these flaws, the film is still an incredible experience based solely on the incredible displays of creative gore.

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).

This is freaking art. Seriously, this movie is what the Machete movies should have been. And make sure to watch the alternative ending or extra scene, it is a little bonus gem. Whatever, this movie is more of a grindhouse movie than most of the original grindhouse movies from back in the ways. The film is about a drifter who grabs a shotgun and starts dispensing justice. The main thing I trip off of is how the film progressively gets better. Frankly it starts off a little too low budget for its own good but after, it becomes cinematic art.