"People look at you and think of how wonderful your future will be…maybe, you'll end up like me, a hobo with a shotgun!"
Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez created Grindhouse as an homage to the beloved exploitation films of their youth. The duo even included faux trailers to complete the double feature experience with Machete being the first to be turned into an actual movie. They allowed fans to participate by holding a contest with the winner being Jason Eisener for Hobo with a Shotgun. The trailer was shot in five days on a budget of $120. No, I'm not missing any zeroes. Three years later, a full-length Hobo with a Shotgun film arrives in theaters in limited release with an earlier release through Video on Demand.
Eisener scores a major coup in landing Rutger Hauer for the title role. Hauer is the nameless Hobo, who rides into the rundown city of Hope Town (re-named "Scum Town" by graffiti artists), on a freight train. The Hobo has a meager goal, seeking to scrape together enough cash to buy a lawnmower and start his own landscaping business. Unfortunately, Hope Town is run by a sadistic drug lord known as The Drake (Brian Downey) and his two douchebag frat boy sons Ivan (Nick Bateman) and Slick (Gregory Smith), both of whom look and dress like Tom Cruise in Risky Business. Immediately upon arrival, the Hobo witnesses Drake decapitate his brother with a manhole and a noose of barbed wire. Blood gushes forth like a fountain as a stripper wearing a bikini and a fur coat randomly bumps and grinds bathes in the crimson fluid. That sets the tone for the insanity that will follow.
As he befriends a sweet-natured prostitute named Abby (Molly Dunsworth), the Hobo is driven to the edge by the decadence around him. He uses the fifty bucks he earned from a despicable Bumfights-style filmmaker to purchase a shotgun from the pawn shop and dishes out his own brand of brutal justice. Don't ask me how he bought all the ammo. He blows away drug dealers, muggers, and a pedophile dressed like Santa Claus. As the citizens rally around their new champion, the Drake takes merciless steps in stamping out any possible insurrection.
Hobo with a Shotgun delivers exactly what the title promises and all that it entails. This is a picture that could have only escape from the fever dreams of a mind exposed to an overdose of exploitation movies and 70's vigilante films. It's an urban Western with the low-budget crassness of a Troma production, more reminiscent of the over-the-top Death Wish 3 than the original Death Wish. Washed in an oversaturated color palette, Hobo also has echoes of the Mad Max series with a post-apocalyptic style climax and a pair of armor-clad demon bounty hunters known as The Plague. Eisener maintains a tone of relentless violence with multiple scenes of grisly, cartoonish violence, such as Drake disemboweling a victim with a baseball bat wrapped in razor blades. Eisener does take the violence a little too far exemplified in a scene where Ivan and Slick use a flamethrower on a school bus full of toe-headed children to the tune of "Disco Inferno" by The Trammps.
Eisener definitely strains to pack as much shock value into the movie. The dialogue is ridiculous with lines like, "I love the smell of your asshole," and "I'm gonna wash this blood off with your blood."
The one thing that makes Hobo work and what lends it credibility is its star, Rutger Hauer. He does a fantastic job at transforming from downtrodden castoff of society to a snarling rage-filled punisher. In one of the film's best moments, Hauer delivers a fatalistic monologue (quoted above) to a room full of newborn babies. It may not have the poeticism of Roy Batty's iconic death scene, but it packs a wallop.
The film is also blessed with an 80's synth-heavy score ala John Carpenter.
Hobo with a Shotgun rides in on a wave of retro B-movies like Machete and Black Dynamite. However, it doesn't have the inventive action scenes of the former or the humor of the latter. It's a one-joke concept thinly stretched to Still, Hobo with a Shotgun is the best movie you'll ever see about a hobo with a shotgun. If you see one movie about a hobo with a shotgun, see Hobo with a Shotgun.
Rating: ** (*****)
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