Film Reviews

Hobo with a Shotgun

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Rutger Hauer
• Details: Canada/TBC TBC

The exploitation sub-genre has rarely hit its stride since Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez made it trendy (but financially void) with Grindhouse. This purposely mucky film came to us initially as an amusing trailer accompanying Grindhouse in its native Canada, and sees the filmmakers' struggle to stretch it out into feature form - even with the presence of genre royalty, Rutger Hauer. While it will have a limited audience, 'Hobo's' inherent nonsensicality makes it unwatchable at points.
Hauer is the titular heat-packing hobo who turns up in a small town and is immediately horrified by the brazen violence of a feared local gang. After saving a local hooker with a heart of gold, he finds himself the focal point of their rage and must fight back to simply survive.
For those who aren't fans of the grubby video nasties these type of films are emulating, this small budgeted production treads very similar ground to last year's more mainstream Machete. If you're in on the joke then it's probably beyond entertaining; but your average film goer will likely see it as little more than garbage and it would be hard to argue.
The main villains are almost Clockwork Orange-like during their glee-tinged murder sprees, but the actual murders are so ridiculous and cartoonish you wonder what the desired effect is. The whole scenario seems assembled for some kind of laddish fun factor, but its appeal is surely limited to hardcore film geek purists with obscure film fetishes.
Recently there was a criminally underrated parody flick called Black Dynamite that successfully lampooned the films of the 70s - it was ostensibly appearing to emulate - without actually insulting them. It didn't matter if you hadn't seen any of those aforementioned flicks because it was funny and entertaining regardless. Hobo is aimed squarely at the cult following who thought Grindhouse was genius and regularly indulge themselves in the films that inspired it.
While I get why some could find this entertaining, I hated every minute of it.

Review by Mike Sheridan