Fellow MoFo’s it has been a hard few weeks for me in the theaters. My last three reviews have all been expletive filled rants against bad movies I paid hard earned cash to see. The worst of which was the cinematic abomination World War Z; an over budgeted bloodless zombie movie and a failure of an adaptation. I need to balance the scales. Instead of a hundred million dollar globe hooping feature, how about something with a lower budget, set in one location, and a bit more grounded. And to hell with this bloodless crap, let’s go for something violent and exploitive. And most importantly, it needs to be a good movie. And what better movie to watch then this 2011 feature from the vigilante sub-genre I love with a title that says it all; Hobo with a Shotgun.
Hobo with a Shotgun was an idea that was born from a fake trailer contest for the grindhouse double feature of Planet Terror and Death Proof directed by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino respectively. To complete the grindhouse feel to the movie experience, they created a bunch of fake trailers to be shown before and between the two features. The idea was thought up by Tarantino and Rodriguez, who then decided to start making the first trailer for a fake movie called Machete (yes that Machete). After the Machete trailer was made a few of their friends decided they wanted to make fake trailers as well. This lead to trailers being made by Eli Roth, Edgar Wright, and Rob Zombie. These trailers captured the feel of many exploitation sub-genres. Robert Rodriguez made the Machete trailer as a tribute to Mexploitation films and Rob Zombies's Werewolf Women of the SS was made as an ode to Nazi-ploitation. But they needed one more so they held a contest for the final slot. Many more fake trailers were made, but the winner came from Canadian director Jason Eisener with the appropriately named Hobo with a Shotgun. The Hobo with a Shotgun trailer won the contest easily and was released with the other fake trailers with the movie, but mostly in Canada. Oddly enough these fake trailers took on a life of their own, and in 2010 Machete was made into a feature length movie. This was made simple due to the fact that the idea and original script for Machete dates back to 1993, but the popularity of the fake trailers helped give Machete the green light. And with the success of that movie, it helped get this movie green lit as well, and the following year it was released.
The movie opens with the unnamed hobo (Rutger Hauer) exiting a boxcar as he arrives at his destination. A place called Hopetown. Or at least that is what it is supposed to be called seeing how the “Hope” of the sign is spray painted over with “Scum.” And when you look across the river towards the city you can see it is a decayed husk, and the people of the town reflect their surroundings. The cops are all crooked and the city streets are full of degenerates ranging from people who make bum fight videos to pedophiles. Drugs and prostitution are in easy supply, and to top it off the city is run by a ruthless crime lord named Drake and his two kids. His favorite son is Slick, who is always in the company of his brother Ivan (whose speech and mannerisms remind me of a drill sergeant I knew in Basic Training). Together they rule over a lawless city and terrorize the innocent inhabitants. The hobo tries his best to survive the streets and scrape up enough cash to buy a lawn mower so he can earn a living. However a chain of events leads him to abandon his humble dream and he instead gets a Remington 12 gauge and begins delivering justice, one shell at a time.
The movie is a throwback to old fashioned vigilante movies that were common in the 70’s and 80’s. Films like Death Wish, The Exterminator, Joe, and Billy Jack are a few examples. They dealt with normal citizens who could not find justice within the system and so they take the law into their own hands to dispense justice; and this movie reflects those old exploitation movies. The opening credit scene looks like it is straight out of a 1970’s B picture, which enhances the aesthetic feel of this movie and compliments the movie poster and DVD cover to complete the feel of a grindhouse flick. The villains in this movie are also so obviously evil that they give the villains in Troma movies a run for their money. There is no subtlety to these villains at all. And when one character is a child molester who dresses like Santa Claus and the main villain puts on shows in the streets where he decapitates his enemies by ripping them off with a barb wire noose connected to a truck, they are also beyond over the top. But the real star of this show is Rutger Hauer, who puts on one hell of a performance! The hobo character starts out as a humble and tired old man who is just trying to get by. But his character begins to get more and more frustrated with his surroundings. He is a man who knows what is right and how people should act. And seeing the scum rule the streets and young girls prostituting themselves, he eventually can’t take it anymore and he releases his anger in a killing spree that makes local headlines. And when this happens the quiet demeanor he had is gone, now what is left is a blood thirsty killer. Along the way he befriends a young prostitute named Abby, and a conversation with her leads to an obvious but excellent piece of foreshadowing.
This movie is nowhere close to high art, but quite frankly it is not supposed to be. Exploitation films by their nature were extremely violent, full of nudity, and often dealt with subject matters that were too controversial for major studios. This movie is not made for snobbish critics and scholars; it is made so the audience can have fun. And this movie delivers on the fun! By far the best viewing I had of this movie was with a group of friends in the barracks. It was simply awesome to see those guys enjoy a movie that I liked so much. If you are a fan of old exploitation films then this movie is a must see. If you are looking for a movie that is a lot of fun, and do not mind graphic violence, then give this movie a shot.
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I hadn't been particularly interested in either Hobo or Machete but after recently watching Death Proof and Planet Terror (along with some either trash like Death Race 2000) I'm now kinda curious about them (even if Death Proof didn't do much for me at all). I watched the fake trailers on youtube and thought that Machete looked quite good fun, even if I'm not sure there was a full film in it. And I laughed so hard at Nicholas Cage just appearing out of nowhere as Fu Manchu. That little piece alone raised my respect for him so much, that he would just play into his unique, OTT style and the fact that he probably would appear in a piece of crap like that.