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Reviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN I love Rutger Hauer when he actually is “on.” He’s like Mickey Rourke in that way, only more immersed in the B movie scene (if one can imagine). He made his mark in ‘80s Hollywood with iconic bad guy roles in Blade Runner and (particularly) The Hitcher, but he has also done so much genre stuff ranging from decent to bad that his talents have become eclipsed by the films’ lack of quality. But first-time feature director Jason Eisener, working off a “fake” trailer that he made for a contest sponsored by Robert Rodriguez to promote Grindhouse, gives Hauer his comeback role (that is, if he ever left). It’s a real character, strangely enough, or at least it seems that way from how much emotionality and passion he puts into the title character. Like with Rodriguez’s Machete, many of the movie’s best nuggets can be found in the trailer (see it, if for nothing else, for the uproarious narration). The premise is barebones B movie: a very run-down town is run down by a brutal gangster and his two nitwit-bastard sons. They treat the homeless like garbage and rule over everyone with fear by committing killings in the street. At one point, they torch a school bus full of screaming children. And the cops? Well, they’re all in the pocket of the gangster. The “Hobo” as he’s simply called (Hauer) rolls into town on the train and just wants to get enough money for a lawnmower for a simple business venture—”You grow ‘em, we cut ‘em”—but one day he finally has enough after watching so much brutality against the homeless and prostitutes, one of whom, Abby (Molly Dunsworth), takes him in one night after a beating. He decides instead of the lawnmower to pick up a shotgun (using it first on some rather nasty stickup punks) and declares war on the gangsters, which, of course, doesn’t settle well with the thugs. This means war! Eisener, who also made a short enviro-horror flick Treevenge about vengeful Christmas trees, knows what he’s doing, as does his cinematographer, Karim Hussain, who has been influenced by early Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson. The camera is almost always moving, even when Hauer is giving an amazingly epic and ridiculous speech, like one about bears after he puts on a sweater with one on it, or when he speechifies to a bunch of babies at a hospital about the rotten lives they have awaiting them. It’s a movie always on the go, a rock-and-roll-(bleep)-yeah! flick that in its Grindhouse tradition relishes in copious and unnecessary violence, sex, and bad language. It even has a climax almost out of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
Eisener’s attention to this aesthetic would make it at least fun, but
his casting of Hauer is an acting coup. With Hauer, nothing is taken
lightly. He makes for such a compelling and (of course) bad-ass
character amid actors who are always hamming it up to greater or lesser
effect (especially the father gangster, Drake, played by Brian Downey).
Even with an ending that is somewhat dissatisfying (no denouement, I
guess), Hobo with a Shotgun should make for a midnight classic in
the same way as a Rodriguez or Tarantino film: unapologetic B movie
mayhem that is rude, funny, and in your face.
Jack Gattenella
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