Hobo With A Shotgun

Truth in advertising goes a long way. It has long been illegal in the United States (and many other countries) to falsely advertise  your product and/or service in order to sell more of it. It would be the equivalent of myself telling the general public that everyone who reads my blog will get a free car. I certainly can't provide a single car, much less multitudes for the five people who may read it, so that, in effect, makes it false advertising. There are ways to circumnavigate the laws in place, which are just as unscrupulous, but not quite as illegal, that are practiced by certain folks, but there are no laws in place that regulate the movie industry in promoting their movies as what they actually are, most recently the teaser ads for The Muppets creatively started out advertising as one type of movie before revealing their true face. This was cool. The trailer for Bridge to Terabithia advertised a whimsical kid's movie in the vein of The Chronicles of Narnia, and what movie-goers got was a terribly depressing movie about the death of one of the major characters. Not so cool. This brings us to our latest film, Hobo With A Shotgun.

 

 

Hobo With A Shotgun is the second movie to come out of the "fake" trailers that were featured in the film Grindhouse, the first being Machete in 2010. It stars B-movie veteran and character actor Rutger Hauer (The Hitcher, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) as The Hobo, who rolls into Hope Town on a train and with a dream. He wants to buy a lawnmower from the pawn shop and start up a lawn-mowing business, but first needs to get the $49.99 for the mower. Unfortunately for The Hobo, Hope Town is under the cruel regime of The Drake, who starts the movie by murdering his own brother, in a very creative way. Helping their dear old dad in the murder are Slick and Ivan, the just-as-crazy sons of The Drake. The Hobo witnesses this and many other atrocities, at one point stopping the assault of a hooker named Abby at the hands of Slick, making a "citizen's arrest" and taking him to the police station, whereupon he learns that the only people they "protect and serve" are The Drake and his family. Ivan and Slick track The Hobo down and brutalize him, after which he is found and taken in by Abby, who then tends to his wounds. The next day, The Hobo goes to the pawn shop to buy the lawnmower (I won't tell you how he gets the money), and while there, three thugs burst in to rob the place and take a woman and her baby hostage. It is this moment that The Hobo makes his decision that Hope Town needs a savior, and opts for the $49.99 shotgun instead of the lawnmower, which is inexplicably fully loaded right off the rack, and dispatches the robbers in gleeful, gory glory. Then, after he has killed the thugs, he walks up to the counter and hands the clerk his $49.99. He is an honest hobo, I must say you don't see very many of those these days.

Can YOU spot the honest hobo?

From there, our Hobo goes out and seeks sweet shotgun justice on all the evils of Hope Town's streets, including (but not limited to) a Santa-clad pedophile, a "Bum Fight" videographer, and a stereotypical black pimp. All of this vengeance is carried out on-screen in it's goriest best, there's more blood per frame than three Friday the 13th movies put together. Eventually, The Hobo inspires the rest of the town-folk to clean up their city, much to the chagrin of The Drake, who has his progeny torch a school-bus full of kids with a flamethrower, just to scare the people back in line. He then declares open season on ALL hobos, and the people, just as quickly as they rallied behind The Hobo, form roaming, murderous mobs that exterminate the homeless of all shapes, sizes and ages. Meanwhile, The Hobo and Abby are holed up at Abby's place, preparing to leave town to go start the lawn-mowing business in a hopefully friendlier town. They get dimed out while they are there, and Ivan and Slick show up to take care of business, and that's when things get really messy. We get to see some creative use of many things in this exchange involving toasters, ice skates, duct tape and The Hobo's trusty shotgun, with a particularly nasty scene involving a hacksaw.

Hacksaws: made to cut metal. Great on flesh, too.

So, let's face it, as far as truth in advertising goes, Hobo With A Shotgun says it all up-front. It perfectly represents the B-movie film culture it is paying homage to while still crafting something a little original. The violence is over-the-top, and there is more blood spilled on-screen than there is in the populace of some small countries, but this film never tries to be more than the gory, entertaining thrill ride it set out to be. I've seen some feature length movies that have been based on a much wider license that have totally failed to deliver, and for this film to have sprung forth from a two minute fake trailer in another movie, I say damn good job. So far, the two movies based on fake trailers have been better than the movie the trailers appeared in.

7 out of 10 Fists.