Hobo With a Shotgun

Directed by Jason Eisener

Starring Rutger Hauer, Gregory Smith, Molly Dunsworth, Brian Downey, Nick Bateman, and Jeremy Akerman.

 Aside from his first effort, Pi, I’ve never been very enthusiastic about Darren Aronofsky’s films. Sure, he’s got a few award nominations under his belt, a share of healthy reviews, and a pervy ‘tache (those are “in” these days, right?), but the bottom line: I’m not a fan of movies that exist merely as stylistic exercises without delivering substance (and no, people doing boatloads of heroin and having limbs amputated is not substance, it’s just misery pornography).

Style, however, wins the battle against substance when the movie revolves around Rutger Hauer ruining people’s shit with a 12-gauge.

The only problem with this movie, really, was that I was not drunk enough during it. I made the critical error of walking into the theatre sober and sticking to 5.5% beers throughout the films, which only delivered mild inebriation when, really, about halfway through the movie I ought to have been shouting obnoxiously at the screen: “Yes! YES Batty! Shoot him in the face!” It’s that kind of movie. The only good way for it to end is with you being dragged out howling and belligerent, telling the ushers repeatedly how amazing shotguns are and how you’re surely going to go out and buy one now. Just make sure to wear trainers to the theatre in case they call the cops and you have to leg it out of there double-quick style.

For those of you who have been living under a rock, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez made a collaborative action-horror double-feature named Grindhouse (2007) after the B-movie theatres of their youths (recommended for a boozy rental). In order to fully immerse viewers in the grotty, exploitation aesthetic the picture is meant to evoke, they commissioned four fake, like-genre trailers from fellow directors and held a contest at the South by Southwest Festival challenging aspiring young filmmakers to provide a fifth for the flick’s release. Dartmouth, Nova Scotia natives Jason Eisener, John Davies, and Rob Cotterill produced two minutes of Hobo With a Shotgun for the win.

Following in the footsteps of Robert Rodriguez’s Machete (also turned into a full-length feature and also an outstanding candidate for a boozy weeknight), HWAS was brought to life by the same crew responsible for the trailer, with the addition of B-movie superhero Rutger Hauer as the lead.

The plot is simple: there is no plot. Just Rutger delivering his brand of vigilante street justice to the gangsters, low-lifes, and pederasts of “Hope Town.” There’s this bit about Rutger saving up his spare change to buy this coveted pawn shop lawnmower, which is in itself AMAZING because a) there’s no grass in this entire film and; b) even if there were, none of it would be his to mow because he’s homeless as fuck in this movie. For serious, you could have put Rutger in a homeless contest with real homeless people and he would have made the podium for sure. In fact, Rutger Hauer should give up acting and just teach homeless people how it’s done. Give lessons at the YMCA and stuff.

There’s about 10-20 minutes of him observing injustice, getting heckled and spat at, him mumbling some stuff about bears, and from that point on it’s just straight-up wreckage for the rest of the movie.

By the time the movie gets going I was about two beer cans deep and mostly worried about the tall black gentleman sitting next to me. Parts of this movie verge on blaxploitation and, while we both know it’s all in good fun, I don’t want to be caught laughing too loud. Because that could get a bit fucked up for me if I’m out there splitting my sides and he’s looking over at me, like: “Dude… not cool.” It happened to me when I was watching Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Double Team and got caught out laughing too hard at D-Rod’s unnecessary basketball references and general ridiculousness.

So minutes 30-45 of the movie consisted of me gauging his level of laughter (and drunkenness) and ensuring that mine never exceeded his. For a moment I contemplated offering him a beer or two to ingratiate myself with him but I was running dangerously low and figured it was worth the risk of being publicly decried a racist. It wouldn’t be the first time (but that’s a story for another posting).

After a few more beers, the range of means and weapons used to ruin people becomes downright impressive. Citizens of Hope Town are getting owned six ways from Sunday by way of cane, toaster, ice hockey skates, manhole cover, chicken wire, and grappling gun, to name a few. The titular shotgun steals the show, of course, blowing off heads and tearing holes in peoples’ chests with such uncompromisingly gritty, low-fi style that it almost becomes a character of its own. I caught myself hoping for a line in the credits that read something like: “And introducing Shotgun as ‘The Shotgun.’” That would have ruled so hard.

The general destruction and slaughter only gets more satisfying as the movie rolls on, which I honestly don’t know whether to attribute to the filmmaker’s love for action exploitation or my level of drunkenness. I don’t remember ever being the only one in the auditorium laughing (this happens plenty on Boozy Wednesday), a pretty strong indicator that the movie stands up to the sobriety test, or that everyone else in the theatre was also ripped. Neither would surprise me.

HWAS boasts enough violence, black humour, retarded cocaine usage, and Canuck cameos that you’ll want to bring your big game into the screening room. Come packing a two-day-old sandwich wrapped in cling-film (or pizza you found in a trashcan) and the dirtiest beer cans you can buy. By the end of the flick you’ll have become hobo by osmosis. Hobosmosis. Fuck I’m clever.

Damage: 4/10 (4 x 500ml cans of Stella Artois; insufficient for thorough enjoyment)

Boozy rating: 8/10 (filled with classic one-liners and wreckage, but so brutally violent that it could upset your drunk)

Up next week: Horrible Bosses