Hobo With A Shotgun [Review]

Timeliness is out of the window tonight, ladies and gentleman: with a film now over a year old up for scrutinisation. But when that film is rollicking grindhouse brawl Hobo With A Shotgun, I expect timeliness is the last thing on people’s minds.

Rutger Hauer is the man behind the beard. You might remember him from such films as Blade Runner, Sin City and, um, Goal II: Living the Dream. Anyway, he’s acted in approximately 138 films (according to IMDB), so chances are you may have seen him in something. Suffice to say, he’s  a bloody good actor. And he doesn’t let up in Hobo With A Shotgun; a film which, you may have realised by now, does exactly as it says on the tin.

Hauer, the unnamed titular hobo hero, rolls into ‘Scum’ Town on a train and is soon bestowed with a show, courtesy of local crime kingpin Drake and his villainous sons. Within minutes both Hauer and the audience (both on and offscreen) have played witness to a decapitation. We soon move onto broken arms, shattered feet, hellish funfairs and torched buses. The violence doesn’t let up: and when our friendly neighbourhood hobo finds himself in the middle of a pawn shop robbery, he decides to take action into his own hands. His bare, merciless, shotgun-wielding hands.

Of course, there’s a bit more motivation to clean the streets than that everyone in Scum Town is a colossal fuckface. Hauer befriends a local lady of the night, Abby, in scenes reminiscent of Scorsese’s great Taxi Driver. In fact, just imagine Hauer as Travis Bickle turned up to eleven: if De Niro’s unhinged driver had indeed laid down his wrath upon more than just a few pimps in a whorehouse. Hobo With A Shotgun has a subtext, if you care to read that far into it, much in the same vein as Taxi Driver. But where the latter was a masterpiece of subtlety and character, Hobo With A Shotgun is... well, a hobo with a shotgun. Need I say more?

Indeed, the definition of grindhouse, this violent brawl through a suburban hellhole is bloody, grotesque and yet sickeningly moreish. Partly due to the cinematography – rather than a dull, murky world for Mr. Hobo to shoot the living crap out of, every colour pops with as much vividity as, well, the head of one poor victim who finds himself between two oncoming bumper cars at the funfair (I warned you it was hellish). Because yes, the villains in this really are villains (“when life gives you razor blades, make a baseball bat. And stick razor blades in it”). And don’t expect a hero to come jumping in at the last minute every time...

Brazen, ghastly and downright hilarious (one newspaper headline reads “HOBO GIVES UP BEGGING, DEMANDS CHANGE”), Hobo With A Shotgun was my introduction to the world of grindhouse. And I think I shall need none further. Take it with a pinch of salt, as it does itself, and you will be entertained. That’s a Cryteria guarantee.

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Dir: Jason Eisener
Cast: Rutger Hauer, Gregory Smith, Molly Dunsworth
Whizbang Films, 86 mins, 15/07/11

Synopsis: A hobo rolls into town and decides to clean up the place. With none other than our good old friend, Mr. Shotgun...