Hobo With a Shotgun (2011)

Written by Rob Cotterill & Jason Eisner and John Davies
Directed by Jason Eisner

There are some movies that are well worth the wait. Hobo With a Shotgun is one of those movies. Ever since Jason Eisner burst onto the internet's consciousness with his original, no budget trailer for Hobo With a Shotgun, everyone has been waiting to see what he would do next. When he made the monstrously funny Treevenge we all waited to see what was next, surely a feature. With the announcement of the feature film of Hobo with a Shotgun, my hopes grew. When I heard Rutger Hauer was set to play the Hobo, my hopes grew even more. When I saw the initial sizzle reel, that Jason posted well over a year ago, the anticipation was killing me.

To finally see Hobo With a Shotgun in all its HD glory could have been disappointing. For a movie that most people haven't heard of, I had the highest expectations, and I'm glad to say Jason Eisner manager to shatter all of my expectations with this film, a balls to the wall gorefest full of gallows humor, superviolence, visual homages, and the zaniest characters this side of Switchblade Sisters. The fact that Eisner embraced the technicolor dreamworld of exploitation cinema as a bright beacon to his lonely Hobo is the sure sign that he is prepared to destroy this world no matter how he makes it look.

An extreme wasteland run by The Drake (Brian Downey), and his two psychopathic sons, the obnoxious Ivan (Nick Bateman) and the gleefully over the top Slick (former child star Gregory Smith). Like a sick version of The Running Man, Robocop, Death Row Game Show, and Battle Royale, Drake instills fear into the civilian population.

Overcome with guilt, and fed up with the disgusting state of the city, the Hobo finally snaps, grabbing a shotgun (and presumably some shells, while he was offscreen) and using it to wipe out the city's scum, which is appropriate, as they call it Scum City.

When they learn of his rampage, the deranged Drake and his sons hunt for the Hobo, and come across the only person he cares about in the world, the young and abused Abby (Molly Dunsworth), who he likens to his own child, and must protect at any cost. When the Hobo manages to wipe out a good number of Drake's men, he must call in The Plague.

The duo are rumored to get their own prequel film, but for now they smash all hell as they methodically hunt down the Hobo and bring him to the Drake. Every scene is an epic battle of wills, with the world on the line in every scene.

What Jason Eisner has managed to capture here is everything. Not just the look, the music, the sound, the actors, the dialogue, everything. Every detail. Everything is an homage to something, with references to Hauer's career (I saw at least one Blind Fury reference) and every underground action film made in the 70's and 80's.

Shot with RED's amazing EPIC 5K camera in 4.5 k (2.5 times the resolution of film) it can look awful if you don't know what you are doing. The production team, camera men, and cinematographer all obviously had long talks with Eisner because every frame of the entire movie has a very specific look, with a lot of homage shots, and a wonderful extremely wide frame. I know they shot near Jason's home town in Dartmouth and other areas around Nova Scotia, but they make it look like an evil sister city to The Warrior's dirty, run-down New York.

For what was surely a very low budget film, everyone was doing their job and firing on all cylinders. This movie looks, sounds, and has more action and gore than it has any right to. But somehow, they pulled it off. The story is engaging without being too tongue-in-cheek, but still balancing a good level of humor, inherent to the nature of such an homage film. Everything is balanced perfectly, and despite its low budget, it's packed with almost constant action, set pieces, and special effects, never losing its pace. I dare say Jason Eisner has crafted the best "throwback" grindhouse film out of the current crop (Tarantino and RR's Grindhouse included) and based on the VOD success alone it seems he won't have much trouble finding future work for his zany ideas. That's something I like to see.

9.8/10 (A+)