HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN (2011)

(Directed by Jason Eisener)

"Epic! Epic! Epic! Epic! EPIC!"- Signed by MartialHorror. 

Plot: A disgruntled hobo enters a town to start his own lawn-mowing business, but finds it infested with criminals. He snaps and begins hunting them down with a shotgun.

Review:

“Hobo with a Shotgun” is INSANE. I mean this in the most literal sense. The film is a throwback to grindhouse splatter films (in fact, it's origins can be traced back to Tarantino/Rodriguez's “Grindhouse”). I really wasn't sure what to expect, but throwbacks tend turn me away just as often as they draw me in. Either they tend to miss the point of what made the films good to begin with or they tend to suffer from faults that should not have been recreated. One of my more controversial moments was when I had lukewarm feelings on “Black Dynamite”, a throwback to blaxploitation films. It was an in-joke that I missed and I felt it went too far trying to be a comedy while not going far enough to be a full blown comedy. I just couldn't take it seriously while not finding it to be THAT funny. “Hobo With a Shotgun” was what I hoped that film would be. It is a thoroughly badass bloodbath that's funny because the movie retains a straight face no matter how daft or absurd the whole project becomes.

A nameless hobo (Rutger Hauer) enters town on a freight train in order to start a lawn-mowing business, but first he has to buy a lawnmower. Unfortunately, the town is a dystopian hell. Not only does crime run rampant, it is rampant in the most extreme, absurd ways possible. The towns crime lord, Drake (Brian Downey), has so much influence that his family can kill people in excessive ways in the middle of a crowded street and no one does anything about it. The cops are crooked and everyone is just too scared to do so. The Hobo is disgusted, naturally, but doesn't want to get involved. However, his friendship with a hooker named Abby (Molly Dunsworth) eventually inspires him to buy a shotgun instead of a lawnmower. It's time to clean the streets of crime and instead of a broom, he's got a shotgun.

You know you're going to get an extreme movie when in the first 5-10 minutes of it, you witness a guy being brutally decapitated which is followed by a girl erotically bathing in his blood. You know that you've got a fucking extreme movie when that is one of the more tame moments throughout the film. In fact, I can easily see people arguing that it goes too far. We expect murder, but do we expect a scene where a guy traps a bunch of kids in a school-bus and torches them? Or what about a little kid screaming from the back of a pedophiles car? It's almost worse in that these scenes are almost (I stress 'almost') played for laughs. The film is very Troma in its relentless sleaze and part of my fascination with the film is that I never really knew what it was going to do next.

I'm not just talking about the heavy violence either. Just when I thought I had the movie figured out, it introduces 'The plague', a duo of killers who wear armor and drag a steal coffin on the back of their motorcycles (!!). Daaaamn, that is quite epic! The films visual style represents its insanity perfectly. The opening credits scene is soothing in that it's almost unreal in its beauty. The techni-color is astounding and the pretty music is memorable, which makes a unique contrast with the rest of the films run down and visceral appearance. It actually wasn't that uncommon for sleazy films like these to have moments of 'art' in its creation, so this amused me greatly (while being what it is satirizing).  The plague's castle (!!) is so over-the-top in how it was designed and shot that it is both comical and chilling. Perhaps the most unsettling moment is when the Hobo is ranting to a bunch of babies. It is funny, but only because he is being so serious with it. For me, this lead to a movie that represented all that I loved about these movies while not really suffering the things I disliked about it. It had suspense, violence and somehow managed to make me laugh throughout it all.

The biggest shocker is how...'human' they manage to make the Hobo. Rutger Hauer is one of those guys who is either phenomenal or utterly boring. It seems like whenever he gets a good role, he's great. I loved him in “The Hitcher” and “Blade Runner”, because those films give him a lot of quirkiness while never being.....quirky. But “Split Second” and (I believe it was) “Heroes of Blood” showcase him at his most boring. He needs a role that gives him a lot to do and this movie gives him a lot to do. You see a wide variety of emotions with the character, including implications of mental instability. They never go too far with the characters abilities either. He's a sturdy, tough old bastard, but he is also vulnerable and does need help at times. He always more-or-less acts his age too. His nonsensical rant about bears felt something like an old dude would rant about. The hobo manages to be sympathetic, badass, funny and terrifying at once. While the villains were very over-the-top in their acting, I dug it. In my opinion, in a film so insanely over-the-top, that is how villains SHOULD act. But a lot of people have disagreed with me there...

“Hobo with a Shotgun” is a movie that is just so wild and daft that I was able to laugh with it, probably because it wasn't openly trying to make me laugh. It knows how silly it sounds and doesn't need to expand on that. When the Hobo spews a one liner, it's cheesy but it's funny because Hauer delivers the line with such conviction! The gore is nasty and the horrendous acts that occur in this film just continue to get more shocking and over the top that it's hard to take it too seriously. I had absolutely no idea what to expect, and for that I had a blast. It lacks the self importance and convolution that brought “Machete” down. It is a simple movie that is just about a hobo going vigilante. It lacks the 'wink, wink' attitude that made me dismiss “Black Dynamite” (in contrast to everyone else, apparently). It let's the humor tell itself and only goes out of its way to be sleazy and graphic. It's much more entertaining than “Death Proof”, but isn't quite as memorable as “Planet Terror”. It's main rival is “Drive Angry”, but that film had much more of a budget. “Hobo with a Shotgun” represented to me what was epic about these types of movies and only brought in the flaws when it could make the flaws fun. A lot of people have disagreed with me, even saying the opposite of some of my points, so don't take my opinion as fact. But I did very much enjoy it.

Granted, I would probably enjoy anything as I had just previously watched Steven Seagal's newest crapfest. But that's like two reviews away. Maybe I should make that a practice for every movie. Watch Seagal's listless films right before I see anything else, because then 'anything else' likely will seem better because of it. 

Violence: Whoa, this movie is extremely hardcore. It's Rated R, but probably should've been NC-17. Even kids can die violently here and have their corpses on display later on.

Nudity: There's a lot of it. Shockingly, there's no explicit rape (only implied), which is probably a good thing as that might've been too much.

Overall: Watch “Hobo With a Shotgun” if you wanna see a good throwback to grindhouse exploitation. I thought it was fun.

3/4 Stars