Hobo with a Shotgun earns rave reviews

Rutger Hauer is straight to cable in Hobo with a Shotgun, with a limited theatrical release coming in May. The reviews are in, and it's extremely good. You can also get it on demand at Amazon rentals and iTunes. [Flooby Nooby]

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Local-Man

Seen it. No good. Don’t be fooled.
HD

If you’ve enjoyed the faux trailer that inspired this film like I have then you will be disappointed in the translation to full length feature. All your favorite scenes are ruined, dumbed down, sobered up or just missing. Instead of “grindhouse” they went for “direct to video”.
- the r kelly
  
  HD, precisely. The faux trailer and the actual trailer are both awesome. No idea where the movie is that they are advertising, though. It isn’t HwaS.
jphilby

“Brutal ass-kicking…” Sounds like a recipe for suck-cess.
rrh

Personally, I loved the villain.

I definitely would have liked to get to the part with the shotgun a lot faster, but I was still entertained.
killian101

I saw this on HDnet a few weeks ago. Over the top good
Flashman

I live around the corner from were a lot of HWAS was shot last summer, and had really been looking forward to seeing this movie. So, I got to see it last week at a movie theatre in Halifax. By coincidence, my friend and I noticed that Hobo’s producer was at the same sushi place we were eating at earlier that evening; Halifax is a small town, obviously.
So, hometown bias disclosed, I’ve got to say this is a really fun, entertaining movie. For what it sets out to do, it is a huge success.
I usually don’t go for this type of gore. I don’t think I even managed to get through either of the Tarantino/Rodriguez movies (which I downloaded, obvsly), and I once got up and walked out of a Troma movie (Citizen Toxie) at the Calgary Film Festival because it was vile, stupid and offensive.
But as well as blood and gore (the final killing is a jaw-dropping masterpiece of excruciating inventiveness), Hobo also has brains and heart figuratively, and sure, a few times literally.
And Rutger Hauer turns in a fantastic, sincere performance.
Anyway, see this movie.

(PS yeah, hometown crowd of stoners, but the audience at this random movieplex showing of the movie cheered and applauded at the end)
nibor

Rambo X – Old Blood
Anonymous

I love Rutger Hauer, but not even he could save this insufferable movie. It’s a very poor parody of the genre. It has the exact same problem as Black Dynamite: it wraps itself so tightly in parody, that it no longer becomes parody but the actual movie it is trying to make fun of.

I urge all fresh directors, like Eisner, to re-watch Airplane. That’s how you do a parody,

Hobo is just grating and annoying. I gave up after 30 minutes.
Diamond Jim

Actually, it’s been in first theatrical run at major theaters in Toronto for nigh on three weeks now. True, it’s a Canadian movie by a new Canadian director, but we’re still leading the way.
Trent Hawkins

The Plague need their own Saturday morning cartoon spinoff.
- Anonymous
  
  Agreed, the Plague were the most sympathetic characters in the whole film. Would love to see the sequel where…
the r kelly

Most disappointing film I’ve seen in recent memory. The first 40 minutes or so are just horrible and ought to have been cut. It should NOT take the Hobo 40 minutes to even find his Shotgun in a movie called Hobo with a Shotgun, should it? No. It shouldn’t. And somehow the entire, 40 minute long backstory can be summed up in a few short sentences: Hobo comes to town, wants to start a new life mowing lawns, meets a hooker with a heart of gold, and after a ‘last straw’ scene that would have been left out of Bum Fights 2, finds a shotgun.

Further, it’s boring, hokey, features the lamest villain since Schwarzenneger’s Mr. Freeze (though less funny), and just isn’t fun outside of a maddeningly few scenes.

Besides those few scenes, the film is an exercise in restraining oneself from turning it off to do something else entirely. It’s fully embarrassing to watch, because you want to root for it, to be on the side of a cool little indie film that ought to have been an exercise in simple entertainment, only to watch it slowly, repeatedly, ploddingly fail.
- wookiedingleberry
  
  I agree with your entire review.
  ‘Army of Darkness’ is a good B-movie. Is this as good?
  - the r kelly
    
    As good as Army of Darkness? Not even on the same playing field. There’s some decent scenes, and it is amusing while things are rolling, but it’s just too sparse. Contrary to the reviews that seem to love this film, it is not an all out shotgun fest or anything close to it.
    
    Most of it is just boring and unfunny and painfully slow going. And hot damn, the villain is just awful from conception to execution. His suit, his haircut, accent, even his friggin’ face, are just bad, and not so-bad-it’s-good.
    
    Most of the violence is fun because it’s so laughably over the top, but the rest is like a bizarro Lifetime movie. I don’t know why they spent so much of the movie straining to make it plausible (it isn’t) and the characters multidimensional (they aren’t.)
Anonymous

With Diamond Jim on this one. Already came and left theaters in Newfoundland. Also, I would totally watch a Plague cartoon spin-off. The episode where they assassinate Abe Lincoln would be second only to the Easter Bunny episode.
Anonymous

I pirated it (the director has called pirating his work “stealing”, which annoys me because I absolutely won’t spend money on any theater release MPAA film; I either see his art online or not at all. However, I am somewhat sympathetic since this appears to be a small indy film. I might pay for merchandise or a non-region coded, non-encrypted DVD if it is offered)

It’s not a brilliant social commentary and the characters aren’t realistic, but if you’re willing to see it as an exploitation film and nothing more, you will find it dramatic, violent, occasionally humorous, and overall entertaining. I’m pretty sure I saw it pay homage to exploitation greats like Sweet Sweetback’s Badass Song and Cannibal Holocaust.

As I said before, it isn’t serious social commentary, but it does an interesting job of combining anti-crime vigilantism (which aught to appeal to the right) while also showing an oppressed member of society fight a corrupt power structure (which should appeal to the left).
- Anonymous
  
  Based on his awesome Reddit AMA, the director (Jason Eisner) certainly seemed to have quickly distanced himself from his comments on the Pirate Bay (this your source, yeah?) regarding theft and seems to have a rather more nuanced attitude towards file sharing that your comment suggests.
  
  For the record: paid to see it, loved it, and I wish Jason and his writers gobs of cash to make more. The world needs more films shot in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia!
Gutierrez

Can we get Cinema Suicide to weigh in?
Anonymous

I loved Machete and Black Dynamite, but didn’t like Hobo.
arikol

Wonderful B-schlock fest.

It was exactly what the title says and implies. Don’t expect a masterpiece of dramatic character acting, just accept it for what it is!
Marcelo

Also, the review in the link didn’t really say why the film was good. I guess he liked that it was filmed in his hometown and it had a song in the end credits he liked, but he didn’t talk about the plot, the story, why it worked, the performances, any of it. It’s really a puff-piece that says the movie is good because it’s good. Not sure why that made it to BB under the moniker “rave reviews.”
BookGuy

I’ve been following this since they first made the fake trailer, and the movie didn’t disappoint. As arikol said, it’s fantastic B-movie goodness. I’d also argue that Rutger did some damn fine acting, too. Maybe I’ll always have a soft spot for him because of Blade Runner, but you can tell he puts everything into his roles, no matter what the project. I’d say his performance was a hell of a lot better than a lot of Oscar winners.
Anonymous

I loved this movie, just like I enjoyed Machete. If you didn’t like that, don’t watch this.

I’m not saying it’s ‘good’, I’m saying I had a great time watching this, because it’s awful. It’s supposed to be awful. That’s the point.

It’s a blood, guts and gore fest in glorious Technicolor. What’s not to like? Yes, it has slow parts, because it has to. This movie is a parody of 70′s entertainment, where we didn’t have action every 7 seconds and we had a chance to rest between action scenes.

If you like this, don’t forget about ‘Rubber’. Another cinematic masterpiece. If you don’t know anything about rubber, don’t look it up, don’t even read the cover. Just watch it knowing nothing of what you are about to see. Trust me, it’ll be more fun if it’s a surprise.
Anonymous

I wandered across the trailer for this movie, and had to watch it, as the wife and I operate under the theory that there hasn’t been a bad Rutger Hauer movie yet. It definitely seems to have an 80s low-budget feel to it. I’d go see it… but I also said I’d go see “Snakes On A Plane”.
Anonymous

Who the fuck said it was a parody? A moron, that’s who. Hobo is a straight up exploitation flick, and it was awesome.
-Sam L
joelf

I loved it. It was great.
Anonymous

I saw this film a few weeks ago when it came out in Canada. I was expecting something along the lines of Planet Terror, but instead it was a poorly paced gore flick with too many Canadian actors and not enough laughable moments. The best part was when the credits rolled to the The Raccoons theme song. “You can run with us!”
planettom

I hope the movie has a scene with him atop a submarine for some reason like in the original fake trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LlazPgxKrA (NSFW).