Hobo with a Shotgun
My word, that Quentin Tarantino has a lot
to answer for. Thanks to his single-minded efforts to popularise the
heretofore obscure grindhouse genre, these days any Tom, Dick or Harry
with a digital camera or some grainy 35mm film stock thinks he can
become the next, well, Quentin Tarantino. But are we complaining? Hell
no! The world needs more films like Hobo With a Shotgun, that
is, more films shot for cheap that are unrelentingly frenetic,
entertaining as hell and about as subtle as a ten car pile-up.
The brainchild and feature length debut of
fledgling Canadian auteur Jason Eisener, Hobo started its life as
an entry in the fake trailers competition initiated by Robert Rodriguez
and QT as part of their Grindhouse project. It won, and after
serving as a sort of thematic aperitif to Death Proof and
Planet Terror at a number of screenings across Canada (as well as
appearing part of the Grindhouse DVD box set) garnered sufficient
interest to justify the production of a feature-length version. The end
result is a garish, gruesome and gleefully deranged exploitation homage
that won’t disappoint fans of such similarly-themed retro fare as
Machete and the superb Run! Bitch Run!
Wearing its unashamedly DIY aesthetic on
its tattered, grubby sleeve, the film stars Sin City’s Rutger
Hauer as the eponymous vagabond, who drifts into the fictional Hope
Town in search of a new start. Instead he finds a morass of violence,
depravity, drugs and corruption, a place where life is cheap and
terrorised citizens are at the mercy of a ruthless crime lord, Drake,
and his two equally unpleasant sons. Befriending a local prostitute
after saving her from the murderous clutches of Drake’s progeny, our
flinty-eyed hero determines to clean up the city the only way he knows
how: one shotgun blast at a time.
It’s all very silly, yet thanks to a
near-perfect blend of pathos, cartoonish villains and rampant bloodshed
also eminently watchable. The eponymous Hobo is played to perfection by
the grizzled Hauer, who seems to relish dispatching scuzzbuckets in a
variety of inventive ways, and newcomer Molly Dunsworth also puts in an
able performance as the hooker with a heart of gold. Eisener stretches
his meagre budget to the absolute limit and has produced a film that
looks both period authentic yet pleasing to modern sensibilities - gaudy
70s-style technicolour never looked so good. It won’t be everyone’s
idea of fun, but those who like their genre flicks crude and bloody will
undoubtedly find Hobo With a Shotgun a real blast.
Special Features
‘More Blood, More Heart’ – The Making of
Hobo With a Shotgun (44:00)
Production Blog (5:00)
Camera Test Footage (3:30)
Four Deleted Scenes
Trailer
