Hobo With A Shotgun

Alternate titles : None

Tagline : "Delivering justice, one shell at a time!"

This surprise cult smash stars Rutger Haur as the eponymous Hobo of the film's title, who arrives in the inappropriately named “Hope Town” looking for a fresh start. Begging for change to buy himself a lawnmower, in the hopes earning a living doing gardening jobs, he soon discovers that he got off the train at the wrong station, as he realises this is a society rife with lawlessness and anti-social behaviour.

Aside from every other person being either a pimp, thug or petty criminal, the town is ruled by a vicious mob boss named Drake who, along with his two crackpot sons, openly extorts, murders and deals drugs to people in broad daylight, with the full blessing of the extremely corrupt local police force, who he controls.

So, deciding enough is enough, he ditches the idea of buying a lawnmower and instead invests in a 12 gauge pump action shotgun and embarks on a quest to clean up the streets his way. Resulting in some hilarious acts of carnage along the way.

Filmed in the same style as one of those 1970s drive-in movies, complete with retro style title credits and intro music, this is an extremely fun film, which doesn’t take itself too seriously and features some hilarious action scenes, as well as some very bizarre sequences that wouldn’t be out of place in a Robert Rodriguez film. Which is kind-of fitting, as this actually started life as one of those false trailers that accompanied the Canadian release of the movie “Grindhouse”.

To be honest the title “Hobo with a Shotgun” really tells you all you need to know about this film. Its terrific good fun and Rutger Hauer is awesome as the Hobo of the films title, and features one of the best uses of the song “Disco Inferno (Burn Baby Burn)” I’ve seen in a film. So if you dug "Machete" or those "Grindhouse" films (or even if you didn’t) my advice is to check this one out immediately!

Overall Marks : 7/10.

Terrifying Trivia

• Director Jason Eisner's first feature film.
• The film started life as a false trailer submitted for a competition to promote the release of the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarentino double feature "Grindhouse". Not only did the trailer win the competition, but they liked it so much, they included it as one of the false trailers that accompanied the Canadian "Grindhouse" release.
• The films budget was $3,000,000.
• The original trailer had David Brunt playing the Hobo. He was asked to reprise his role for the film, but declined due to health problems. He still makes an appearance in the movie though, playing a dirty cop.
• Filmed on location in the town of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
• The car the mobster's sons drive round in is a Bricklin SV1, which is a rare Canadian sports car from the mid 1970s, which was chosen for the film as the director remembered them from his youth and wanted to use one in the film. As there were only about 2800 of these produced, finding one proved exceptionally difficult. Then on the first day of filming, the stuntman driving it spun it round a corner too far and damaged the rear tyres and axle.
• The young prostitute who the pimp tells to "Stop wasting her time doing homework" was played by one of the office girls from the production company.
• The film originally had an additional scene at the end showing Molly Dunsworth's character Abby becoming one of "The Plague" members, complete with a four barrelled shotgun for an arm, but this scene was cut. This can be found on the DVD as a deleted scene.
• The shotgun used in the film was a Remington 870.
• Rutger Hauer was initially unsure about the film when he first read the script, so decided to call up the film makers to find out just what it was they were trying to do. It was after speaking to them on the phone, they managed to talk him round and he agreed to do the movie.

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