Rutger Hauer is a hobo with a shotgun. ’Nuff said.
There’s something appealing about the movie’s unpretentious carnival of carnage.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2011
Hobo with a Shotgun 2011
Preaching the joyous subversion of exploitation movies like some meth-addled minister, Hobo is a lean slab of high-octane cinema. The film is a miasma of sound and imagery that hardcore fans recognise as the caressing hand of a movie fanatic. Rutger Hauer plays the titular Hobo as if Eastwood’s ‘Man with No Name’ escaped a psych ward in his dressing gown. Arriving in a hellhole with his shopping trolley, all he wants is simple domesticity by purchasing a lawnmower. Blocking him at every turn is society itself, collapsing around him in a town ruled by mob leader The Drake and his two psycho offspring. Deciding a shotgun is a better way to spend his money, the Hobo initiates a citywide rampage. It’s as if director Jason Eisener had downed a keg of Street Trash Viper, blended it with some meaty chunks of Texas Gladiators 2020 and Class of 1984, then vomited it all up in Technicolor. — AT