Oh, Rutger Hauer, once the sexy man-wolf Navarre in Ladyhawke, and now the rode-hard-and-put-up-craggy-faced-and-tired hobo, in Hobo with a Shotgun.
Hobo with a Shotgun is the kind of movie where the most memorable line is, “When life gives you razor blades, you make a baseball bat covered in razor blades.” That dialogue is immediately followed by the aforementioned weapon disemboweling someone.
The movie is a throwback or perhaps an homage to the exploitation–grindhouse cinema–films of the 70s, complete with the over-the-top, cheesy violence and sexuality. Well, mostly violence, unless your idea of sexuality is a few shots of naked boobies. The film actually has its origins as a “fake” movie trailer, submitted by director Jason Eisener to a contest that Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino held to promote their Grindhouse movies, Planet Terror and Death Proof. Eisener’s entry won and eventually led to the funding to make the full length movie. This little factoid in response to my husband’s question, midway through the movie: “Where do they get the money to make a movie like this?”
It begins when the hobo (Hauer) arrives in town, true hobo style, on a train. This isn’t a quaint little village that hides a dark secret. Nope, this place showcases its depravity, front and center. The Drake (Brian Downey), one of the film’s villains, is staging the equivalent of a public execution. The Drake is a theatrical kind of villain, who loves evil monologues, baseball bats and his two sons. Well, one of them, anyway. Slick (Gregory Smith) is his favorite, while Ivan (Nick Bateman), poor Ivan is just tolerable.
The hobo arrives just in time to see The Drake kill his brother in a manner that wins the award for Most Creative Use of a Manhole Cover. The Drake’s brother is wearing a manhole cover like a kind of metal Elizabethan collar. Drake and his spawn drop dear Uncle down a manhole, attached one end of a rope to his neck, and the other to a Bricklin SV-1 . (No, it’s not a white DeLorean.) The Bricklin drives away and — Pop! — Uncle loses his head, blood fountains up from the manhole, and a half naked woman comes out of nowhere to dance in the blood rain.
A-yup, it’s that kind of movie.
For what it is, Hobo with a Shotgun isn’t bad. I mean, if you’re looking for a nuanced drama exploring existential angst among the homeless, this ain’t it. Hauer’s performance is surprisingly earnest, given the tongue-in-gory-cheek nature of the movie, but his, uh, motivations are rather simple. The hobo wants to buy a lawnmower and settle into a career of keeping rich people’s grass trimmed to homeowner’s associations specs. But after witnessing one too many crimes–including a pedophile Santa kidnapping his next victim–the hobo turns vigilante. With a stolen shotgun in hand, and a seemingly endless supply of ammo, he starts turning the bad guys into so much red sauce. He is aided and abetted by prostitute with a heart of gold, Abby (Molly Dunsworth).
Hobo with a Shotgun knows it’s a terrible movie. Like the Tarantino/Rodriguez films, it revels in it, swims in a pool of gooey movie blood and rubber guts. The problem is, that for this rather jaded movie viewer, the bloodfest feels sort of banal. What might have been shocking in the 70s, is almost de rigueur now.
Not that Hobo with a Shotgun is entirely without moments of random weird hilarity. In one scene, there is the inexplicable appearance of cephalopod tentacles. We never get to see the owner of those appendages. Is it an octopus? The legendary kraken? Cthulhu?
Screenwriter 1: “You know what this needs more of?”
Screenwriter 2: “Uh, cowbell?”
Screenwriter 1: “No, tentacles!”
Screenwriter 2: “Oh yeah, man. Tentacles would be sick.”
As with the Tarrantino/Rodriquez flicks, this film lets the ladies get in on the violence. In the final showdown, Abby deals the messy death blow to one assassin via a choppy-slicey, lawnmower shield that she constructed earlier. A hooker with mad welding skillz…who knew? (Of course, Abby is a 98-pound weakling compared to Cherry Darling of Planet Terror. Because if you’re going to lose a leg and have it replaced with a prosthetic, it should fire bullets, lots of bullets.)
My question, as I watched Hobo with a Shotgun was, “Do the actors brag about their roles in this movie? Do they call home and say, ‘Mom, guess what? I got a part in Hobo with a Shotgun. Wait’ll you see it.'”
Perhaps they do. And maybe Mom’s response is, “That’s wonderful, dear, a real step up from the herpes advert you did last year.”
