Willing ignorance is one human folly we’re all guilty of. It is the fear that prevents us from interfering in stranger’s quarrels. It is the silence that hinders our ability to speak up in uncomfortable situations and it is the hesitation in all of us that just wants someone else to handle the situation when we drive past complete strangers broken down on the side of the road.

In Jason Eisener’s Hobo With a Shutgun, Rutger Hauer plays a hobo who tires of being willingly ignorant. As a vagrant he has suffered through and witnessed first hand nearly all of the wickedness of humanity – or so he thought.

Welcome to Hope Town. Or Scum Town as the residents all fondly call it. Everyone knows what side of their town is ‘that‘ side of town, but in Scum Town? It’s all that side. A formidable shithole. If you’re not a hooker, you’re an addict. If you’re not either one of those? You’re homeless, or eventually a corpse. The town is in fear of and thus morally compassed by The Drake (Brian Downey) and his two asshat sons Slick and Ivan – both only slightly less evil than their father but twice as dense. For kicks they kill people. Violently. Their method of choice? Public decapitation. Baseball bats covered with razors. Smashing skulls in with bumper cars and also? Setting buses full of school children on fire with massive blowtorches and watching them scream.

See? Total asshats.

And the citizens aren’t that much better. Some of the best include a pervert who dresses like Santa Claus and molests children. A pimp whose ho’s don’t even remotely qualify as legal and a guy who gets his kicks paying bums to eat glass.

When the hobo witnessed his first act of violence in Hope Town he did nothing. He walked away. A simple man with a simple dream of owning a lawn mower and starting a modest yet productive life – walked away to protect that dream. But it got to him. Big time. And money that he had saved up through months of panhandling for that dream? Just enough for a shotgun.

Now with that said, this movie is far from serious. It is vicious. It is bloody. It is at times, fucking hysterical. It’s got a great story that though sometimes is lost in the ridiculousness of it all, is still pretty solid and also has some of the worse yet most badass oneliners and monologues I have ever heard in my life.

Favorite line of the film? From Slick the douchebag’s mouth himself:

Slick: I’m going to wash this blood off; with your blood!

Deep, amiright?

The characters are great. The hobo himself is downright righteous. He’s like the Jiminy Cricket of fucked-up justice. The afformentioned blockhead brothers and their psychotic father are ultraviolent and so so easy to hate. The lead actress, the sensitive hooking-til-I-can-teach type of chick named Abby is adorable – but the best characters? The Plague. A double team of monty python black-knight looking mofo’s who duel out SERIOUS pain and have a closet full of krakens.

Seriously.

I highly recommend this flick for anyone who loves technicolor as much as I do – and of course, fans of head explosions. Because thats pretty much occurs every 15 minutes of the film.

Check out the trailer below:

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