When an ageing Hobo (Rutger Hauer) jumps from a freight car in a new city hoping for a fresh start in life, he soon realizes he has well and truly reached the end of the line.
Just like Machete, Hobo with a Shotgun is a feature length version of the 'fake' film trailer seen on the Rodriguez / Tarantino collaboration Grindhouse which was a double feature of Planet Terror and Death Proof. And just like Machete it's really exciting to get to see this trailer being expanded into a full film as there was a lot of interest in the 'fake' trailers when they was aired on the Grindhouse films.
Know only as Hobo, Rutger Hauer, plays the eponymous homeless vigilante who after seeing the Drake brothers try to kill a young prostitute girl decides to set about bringing his own kind of justice to Hope Town (otherwise known as Scum Town or Fuck Town depending on who is talking about it). Hobo buys a pump action shotgun (although he really wants to buy a lawnmower to start his own business) and uses it to blow away crooked cops, paedophiles and other scumbags, leaving a bloody trail on his way to confronting Ivan and Slick the Drake brothers and son of The Drake.
The level of violence in the film is high from the very beginning with bloody, gory killings throughout. Let me make this clear from the start. The violence in Machete was somewhat stylised and almost cartoon-like. In Hobo it's far gorier and more sadistic in nature.
The direction is passable and the pacing is also good. It's a slight plot that's been stretched more than a little to fill 86 minutes but it just about works. It's clearly been put together on a small budget of just $3m but it goes to show that a film can be made for such a small amount.
Gregory Smith is Slick and Nick Bateman is Ivan. Molly Dunsworth puts in a standout performance as Abby and Brian Downey is The Drake. The supporting cast in this film apart from Dunsworth are, sadly, all fairly poor, they're just too over the top and corny. But it's Hauer that plays the whole thing straight (as if he were looking for an Oscar!) that holds the film together and makes everything tick. And it does tick, if not as strongly as Machete, but that's simply because the story isn't as strong and the writing and direction are noticeably weaker. If Robert Rodriguez had written and directed this film I think that we would have had something different and all together more palatable and enjoyable film. What we get from writer John Davies and director Jason Eisener is something that is simply overly gory and sadistic, that borders on, if not actually completely tips over into some sort of torture porn.
I feel that Hobo with a Shotgun could have been lighter and more fun. It lacked the humour of Machete and just seemed pretty grim throughout. Ultimately I think it will find an audience, albeit a different audience to that which enjoyed Machete.
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A Hobo (Rutger Hauer) blows into a lawless town, arms himself with a shotgun, and decides to take down a ruthless crime boss in this violent, neo-exploitation throwback that began as a 'fake' trailer for the Grindhouse Trailer competition at the 2007 South by Southwest Film Festival.
Rutger Hauer stars in this action comedy as a homeless man who takes vigilantism to a new scale. Arriving in a new city, our hero soon realises that it is a hotbed of crime and corruption presided over by gang bosses and bent cops who will do nothing to deliver justice. Armed robberies, prostitution and paedophilia are rife, and the only obvious way to tackle the perpetrators is to take to the streets with a 20-guage pump-action shotgun.
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