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When Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez decided to team up to make their 2007 .nightsandweekends.com/articles/07/NW0700185.php>Grindhouse double feature, they unleashed a big, cheesy parody monster. Two of the film’s fake trailers have already inspired full-length features—Rodriguez’s Machete and director Jason Eisener’s Hobo with a Shotgun.
Hobo is the story of a homeless man (Rutger Hauer) who rides the rails into a town called Hope Town and finds little hope there. Instead, crime is rampant. The cops are crooked—all owned and well-paid by bloodthirsty crime boss Drake (Brian Downey) and his arrogant sons, Slick (Gregory Smith) and Ivan (Nick Bateman). Even the town’s jolly old Santa Claus is a pedophile.
After attempting to protect pretty young prostitute Abby (Molly Dunsworth) from Slick’s unwanted advances, the hobo learns that the only way to clean the streets of Hope Town is with a shotgun. So he takes to the streets and starts blowing away the bad guys.
From its cheesy theme music to its over-saturated colors, Hobo with a Shotgun is a pitch-perfect ‘70s B-movie parody. It’s intentionally ridiculous, with awkward acting, painfully corny writing, and violence that’s hilariously overdone. It’s also sadistic and profane just for kicks, with stabbings, beheadings, and shootings galore—spouting gallons and gallons of thick, syrupy, bright red fake blood.
While most of the cast hams it up, amusingly overplaying their ridiculous lines, though, Hauer plays it completely straight, delivering ludicrous lines and inane monologues with dramatic gusto, as though they were written by Shakespeare himself. Whether he’s preaching at the bad guys from behind the barrels of his trusty shotgun or sweetly philosophizing about why you shouldn’t hug a bear, his seriousness makes him seriously funny.
Like most B-movie parodies, though, the fun doesn’t last. For a while, the corny dialogue and over-the-top torture is dementedly hilarious—but, after a while, it just feels like more of the same. The violence becomes exhausting, and the writing loses its B-movie sparkle.
Even at just 86 minutes long, the film feels a bit drawn out—because, well, there’s just so much you can do with a hobo and a shotgun. And it doesn’t help that—once Drake calls in his goofy-looking enforcers—things quickly go from lovably bizarre to downright stupid. Fortunately, though, the excitement returns at the end—for the massive bloodbath that brings the film to a close in some creatively horrific ways.
Hobo with a Shotgun definitely has a small audience. It’s crude and ridiculously bloody (albeit blatantly fake), and the writing is mind-numbingly bad. But if you love the over-the-top violence and unintentional humor of old B-movies, it’s worth taking a trip to Hope Town—if only for Hauer’s hilarious performance as the gun-toting homeless man.
Blu-ray Review:
It may have been made on a relatively tiny ($3 million) budget, but the makers of Hobo with a Shotgun held nothing back for the film’s Blu-ray release. The disc features hours and hours of extras: deleted scenes (including the strangest musical montage you’ll ever see), trailers, camera tests, interviews, and even a 45-minute making-of documentary, which follows director Jason Eisener and friends on the journey from YouTube sensation to full-length feature filmmakers. It’s a fascinating feature—and it’s a must-see if you’re thinking about a career in filmmaking, since it discusses the challenges of making a low-budget film. You’ll even get a good shot of Eisener getting grossed out by his own film.
You can also choose from four different ways to watch the film: on its own, with commentary by Eisener and friends, with commentary by Eisener and Hauer (who have the same kind of easy-going chemistry), or in the interactive Shotgun Mode. The Shotgun Mode allows you to check out more than 40 additional stomach-turning behind-the-scenes clips—everything from test footage, rehearsals, and bloopers to blood sprinklers, exploding mannequins, and other creative special effects. You can also see the fake trailer that started it all and meet the original Hobo, Dave Brunt. Or, if you prefer, you can watch the clips on their own, directly from the special features menu.
Fans of this over-the-top exploitation thriller will find all kinds of little treats on the disc’s special features menu. But if you have just a few minutes to spare, start with HDNet’s look at the movie, which gives a good overview of the film and the filmmaking experience (as told by Eisener and Hauer, who were interviewed while snuggled up together in bed) in just five minutes.
