‘Hobo With A Shotgun’ (2011)

Now there’s a title that pretty much says it all and leaves you wondering what on earth you are going to say next… It’s also proof that I will watch anything, on Youtube, when Hope decides she wants to sleep in my bed and is all elbows and feet. Happy days...

In a journey to earn his way out of poverty, a homeless man pulls into a city of urban chaos, where crime prevails and the city’s crime boss reigns with violent and bloody malice. Seeing this urban landscape filled with armed robbers, corrupt cops and abused prostitutes, the Hobo soon abandons his plans and turns vigilante in order to deliver justice to this city of filth the only way he knows how--with a 20-gauge shotgun. Mayhem ensues as he tries to clean up the streets and make the city a better place for future generations. However with the city’s evil crime boss Drake standing in his way, will the Hobo’s own brand of street justice prevail?

‘Hobo With A Shotgun’ started out in life as one of the fake trailers in ‘Grindhouse’ but took on a life of its own and became a full length movie in its own right. And what a movie it is! The plot is simple and quickly shoved to one side in favour of an orgy of over the top violence. Gangsters, pimps, corrupt cops (and more, the Santa Claus guy was just plain wrong…), ‘Hobo’ throws it all into the mix and serves it up with a sauce of blood and shotgun shells. Rutger Hauer delivers some absurd lines in his own special way and makes them all the more chilling for it; Molly Dunsworth is also noteworthy as ‘hooker with a heart’ Abby.
I don't really know anything about Grindhouse films at all but I have a feeling that the whole 'exploitative' angle is the whole point of this kind of film (anyone want to chip in here?) If nothing else, it does give our Hobo cause to take up his gun and start shooting the bad guys.

And… That’s it really. ‘Hobo’ doesn’t have anything deep to say and that’s the whole point really. 86 minutes of entertainment so brainless that you can easily forgive the film for its flights of fancy (seriously, where did the demons suddenly appear from?) and the fact that it is as corny as hell. I think I would have enjoyed ‘Hobo’ more if I was drunk but it worked just fine for what it was, fun but ultimately forgettable (the lack of meat on these bones doesn't do the film any favours). Now to watch ‘Machete’…