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| HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN
(director/writer: Jason
Eisener; screenwriters: Rob Cotterill/John
Davies/story by John Davies; cinematographer:
Karim Hussain;
music: Adam P.
Burke/Darius Holber/Russ Howard III & The Obsidian
Orchestra; cast: Rutger Hauer (Hobo), Molly
Dunsworth (Abby), Gregory Smith (Slick), Brian Downey
(Drake), Nick Bateman (Ivan), Jeremy Akerman (Chief
Wakeum), Pasha Ebrahimi (Bumfight Filmmaker), Robb Wells
(Logan); Runtime: 85; MPAA Rating: R; producers:
Rob Cotterill/Niv
Fichman/Frank Siracusa; Magnolia Pictures;
2011-Canada) "This one is a sicko exercise in meaningless entertainment, geared for those who get off on moronic bloodbath pics." Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz First-time director Jason
Eisener ("The
Teeth Beneath")
directs this
trashy exploitation clichéd pic,
that was inspired by his competition-winning fake trailer
for Quentin Tarantino’s bummer "Grindhouse" film. This
one is a sicko exercise in meaningless entertainment,
geared for those who get off on moronic bloodbath
pics. The pic leaves us with the perverted message
that humanity has become so depraved that the only
solution for cleaning up corruption is outdoing the
baddies in violence. Rutger
Hauer portrays the titular elderly hobo vigilante, who winds up in Hope Town,
called by the low-life locals Fuck Town, after hopping
off a freight train and gets fed up with the violence
he sees directed at defenseless innocent people by the
goons of evil wealthy TV producer Drake (Brian Downey). The
raving lunatic Drake runs things in town with
impunity, and like the targeted viewer gets his
jollies watching innocents tortured. The nameless hobo makes a
citizen's arrest of Drake's favorite evil son Slick (Gregory Smith) and the corrupt police
chief (Jeremy
Akerman) instead
attacks him, thereby giving Slick the chance to carve
with a switchblade knife the word 'Scum' into the
hobo's chest. The hobo soon manages to get a shotgun
from a pawn shop and goes after the city's venal
criminal element, its pimps and pedophiles. Then as a
protector to teenage streetwalker Abby (Molly
Dunsworth), the hobo puts all his energy into bringing down the evil
empire run by Drake and his psychopathic sadist sons
Slick and Ivan (Nick Bateman). The hobo also frees the
citizens from Drake's bloody reign of terror, after he
ordered them to kill all the homeless or he will kill
their children. This is a sloppily made,
witless and poorly acted production. It's a bad film
with an inept screenplay written for shock value by
the director and cowriters Rob Cotterill and John
Davies, who pretend the dialogue and narrative is so
terrible on purpose. The filmmaker also wants us to believe
its crude perverse scenes of torture and decapitations
are meant as artistic expressions for its lurid
grindhouse look. REVIEWED ON 11/15/2011 GRADE: C- Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews" © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ |