It is exactly as it sounds…a movie about a hobo with a shotgun! This is an example of an indie film at its finest: raw, fun and somewhat esoteric. Directed by Jason Eisener, Hobo with a Shotgun is a magnificent piece of work that doesn’t stop exploding expectations with every subsequent scene. It played at both Sundance and South By Southwest this year and is now opening in more and more cities across the United States. If you don’t walk out in the first 10 minutes, you’ll be mesmerized by the remaining 76.
Rutger Hauer stars as a Hobo that stumbled on a crazy town that is the emphasis of everything wrong with people. Drake (Brian Downey) controls everyone with fear along with his brat kids Slick (Gregory Smith) and Ivan (Nick Bateman). Together, they terrorize the citizens into brain dead peons they can abuse. The town is littered with prostitutes and their pimps, up to know good kids snorting cocaine, crooked cops and even a child molester dressed as Santa Clause. The hobo can’t believe his eyes and eventually has enough.
Through befriending a prostitute (Molly Dunsworth) and trading in his dream of owning a lawnmower for a shotgun, Hobo becomes a vigilante on a rampage. He goes after anybody and everybody who committed any wrongdoing and wants to single handily clean up the city he just rolled into. As his notoriety grows, the headlines of the newspapers are some of the funniest reactions reading: “Hobo Stops Begging, Demands Change and “Parents Smile as Bodies Pile.” Even though these lines and many others in the film are clever, the script is remarkably terrible and make you cringe in your seat.
This is a hobo...with a shotgun
The blood splattering and hysterical screaming are in abundance in this movie. There are a slough of camera tricks used including the overused shot from below to illustrate craziness and overbearing expressions. The acting was pretty great as well as the background music and visuals. As I said before, if you can get through the type of ridiculous gory movie this is, you’ll be sitting in from a real treat that keeps you enticed until close to the end. At a point, it just got too big for itself and lost its simple charm. But in the end, I really liked it and was glad I finally got to see it…if it’s playing in your city, you should definitely check it out too. “You can’t solve all the world’s problems with a shotgun.” “…it’s all I know.”
Do you see where that thing is pointed!?
Tags: Brian Downey, Gregory Smith, Hobo with a Shotgun, Jason Eisener, Molly Dunsworth, Nick Bateman
Matthew Fong created advancescreenings.com and is the lead contributor. He watches every type of movie and will try almost anything twice. You can follow him on twitter here: @matthewfong
