Film Review: Hobo With A Shotgun

I have a lot of time for Rutger Hauer. Best known for his outstanding performance in Blade Runner, I prefer his lesser known roles like in Wanted: Dead Or Alive or The Hitcher (which, to this day, is still one of the creepiest performances I have ever seen).

So I was looking forward a great deal to Hobo With A Shotgun when I first heard about it. It is based on a competition winning fake trailer during the time Quentin Tarantino and Roberrt Rodriguez' Grindhouse came out, and ended up being used with the other fake trailers during Grindhouse screenings in Canada (where first time director Jason Eisener hails).

The plot concerns Hauer's titular hobo who arrives in a new town to find it has been overrun by the criminal and the corrupt. He decides to take justice into his own hands and kill his way to the top - crime boss The Drake (Brian Downey).

While it's not a massive problem with what it is, the film does try a bit too hard to be shocking and gory. The violence is absolutely insane most of the time - body parts being shot off, a pedophile Santa being blown away, glass eating, a bus full of school kids being incinerated...it's not subtle stuff, but as a 'grindhouse' film that's kinda the point.

Hauer is on good form as the Hobo, and the rest of the cast are suitably over the top. The introduction of two armor clad killers called The Plague is quite strange though, as is the inexplicable octopus moment (you'll know it when you see it), even the hooker with a heart of gold character isn't as one dimensional as you would normally get.

Extra points must be awarded to the use of music over the end titles also, the choice of 'Run With Us' by Lisa Lougheed (the end theme music from 80s cartoon The Raccoons) is a masterstroke, and fits in with the retro feel of the film perfectly.

In the end, Hobo...succeeds with what it set out to do, but it's pretty much what I expected it to be. It's hard to put a finger on that kind of criticism with a film, but it did exactly what it said on the tin, should I have expected anymore than that?

***1/2

A solid genre film, but it is the film you expect it to be. For the most part, not in a bad way, but I did find it was trying a bit too hard with the violence. Worth a watch, though.