Hobo with a Shotgun

After learning that Jason Eisener actually developed a real feature-length film out of the faux Hobo with a Shotgun trailer he created for an international contest in promotion of Quentin Tarantino's and Robert Rodriguez's double-feature release Grindhouse (2007), I immediately had legitimate skepticism regarding the quality of the work. After all, Grindhouse is a total insult to the original grindhouse films, as it lacks both the spirit and gritty aesthetic prowess associated with the original low-budget pictures. Furthermore, Robert Rodriguez's Machete (2010) is so horrible that it hardly inspired any illegal immigrants from south of the border to commit bloody machete wielding crimes against whites. In fact, the bloody aftermath that occurred upon the initial release of The Warriors (1977) was much more brutal. After watching Hobo with a Shotgun, I am happy and admittedly surprised to report that - not only is the film better than both original Grindhouse films and Machete combined, but it also manages to capture the essence of the original grindhouse films, except set in a zeitgeist more resembling our modern dystopian times. Instead of seeming like a gross mockery of the genre - like Grindhouse and Machete - Hobo with a Shotgun - both in the stark urban brutality and libertine legality of the streets contained within the setting of the film - is indubitably an authentic contemporary grindhouse film destined to stand the test of time.  Aesthetically, Hobo with a Shotgun resembles the colorfully flamboyant urban decay of exploitation classics like Street Trash (1987) and Class of 1984 (1982).  In ultra-violence and carnage, Hobo with a Shotgun borrows attributes from the likes of sci-fi-action blockbuster Robocop (1987) and countless vigilante revenge flicks made before it.

Dutch born actor Rutger Hauer plays the hobo with a shotgun - in a role so stoically heroic (albeit murderous) - that he makes Clint Eastwood's performance in Gran Torino (2009) seem like the prima donna antics of an elderly queen on the verge of senility. I recently saw Hauer play an old hippie charlatan cult leader in an exceedingly mediocre work entitled Happiness Runs (2010), so naturally it was quite therapeutic to see the Dutchman blowing off the heads of urban degenerates in Hobo with a Shotgun. Rutger Hauer had an excellent early career in his homeland of the Netherlands while working with Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven (Soldier of Orange, Turkish Delight) and his career started out decently when he first moved to the United States, but it has unfortunately waned over the past two decades or so. Rutger Hauer gallantly fought the Nazis as a Dutch resistance fighter in Soldier of Orange (1977), but in Hobo with a Shotgun he plays a shabby bum who takes out a new type of enemy in the form of corrupt corporate assholes and bottom-feeding parasitical scum. Metaphorically, Hobo with a Shotgun is an assault on modern America and the American obsession with screwing over anyone just to make an extra buck. Upon first arriving at the corrupt city at the start of Hobo with a Shotgun, the Hobo encounters sleazy Hollywood producer types paying a couple of homeless men to completely humiliate and brutalize their bodies for a mere ten dollar bill. The Hobo also soon learns that the city is run by a sadistic capitalist named Drake and his deranged progeny - Slick and Ivan - two young psychopaths who get their kicks by raping women and brutalizing citizens. The general population of the city seems like a parody of American urban citizenry - as they follow blind allegiance to whatever filth is broadcasted on their TV - committing crimes and killing/robbing fellow citizens in an attempt to obtain some kind of deranged semblance of the American dream. Of course, when the Hobo starts annihilating criminals, the citizens begin to notice and follow suit - taking back their city one step at a time - liquidating every criminal they can find.

Hobo with a Shotgun is far from a landmark in motion picture history, but it is, undoubtedly, a full exercise in salacious subversive sinema of the quality kind. It is not everyday that I get to experience a highly entertaining film like Hobo with a Shotgun where a stoic master actor like Rutger Hauer liquidates individuals who resemble the white-shoe-boy-pansy-parasites that run Wall Street. I especially enjoyed a scene in Hobo with a Shotgun where the Hobo blows away a Santa Claus outfit sporting pedophile who stalks children at a public playground. The Hobo certainly delivers Pedo-Claus' Christmas present early in the form of a fatal shotgun explosion. It also goes without saying that despite portraying a less-than-homely-hobo, the handsome Nordic Rutger Hauer makes swarthy Charles Bronson of Death Wish seems like a sneaky rat by comparison. My main problem with Hobo with a Shotgun is that - despite Hauer's range as an actor (as opposed to most action stars) - the director did not give Hauer more time to shine, but I guess that is what one comes to expect from a film following in the footsteps of the original grindhouse pictures. Unlike a lot of modern Hollywood films (which contain a liberal relativist morality), Hobo with a Shotgun features a blatant dichotomy between good and evil. In fact, the Hobo delivers a very wise message when he states, "Evil will go against evil and wipe itself out." For a real-life historical demonstration of the Hobo's quote just take a look at any political revolution in history, which are usually of a cannibalistic nature. For example, in Joseph Stalin's Great Purge that lasted from 1936-1938 - the dictator liquidated around a million of his own people including communist party members, government officials, Red Army officials, and even his head (Nikolai Yezhov) of the NKVD Secret police. Some really evil assholes must have been running the United States for the last century for it to go down the amoral latrine so fast. If the USA is lucky, hopefully some real-life shotgun wielding hobos will start cleaning up American cities and bring real positive change to this culturally deteriorating country. After all, American youth would learn grandeur ideals of intrinsic value from hobo vigilantes than from all the ill-literate side-show-clown-play-thug rappers featured on MTV combined.

Near the conclusion of Hobo with a Shotgun, the pompous psychopathic villain Drake so arrogantly states to his barbaric peasant audiences, "Do you see what I mean folks, I provide you with NOTHING but the highest quality adrenaline-filled family entertainment." Of course, you can bet that your average Hollywood producer carries the same type of neo-vaudevillian opportunistic philosophy as Drake, for they also provide you with nonsensical philistine entertainment that will cause your blood to rush, yet such mindless lowbrow carnival routines merely degrade the viewer in the long run. For evidence of this, just go to your local bar or restaurant and listen to how many times some modern extreme philistine quotes a stupid movie like Todd Phillips' The Hangover or any other work of C-grade Tinseltown comedic smut. Speaking of derogating entertainment, in Hobo with a Shotgun, the heroic Hobo has some fun by humiliating and torturing a parasitic producer who creates Bumfight-like digital video filth. Although the Bumfight producer can dish out humiliating situations to desperate bums - when the tables are turned by the hobo with a shotgun - the producer whines and squirms like the parasite worms that he is. Sure, one could say that Hobo with a Shotgun is an example of hypocritical entertainment, as it is a trashy portrayal of a man taking out humanoid trash, yet with such an already degraded audience like the American citizenry, one must start small when attempting to spread new virtuous ideals. 

Without question, a major flaw of Hobo with a Shotgun is the film's lack of multiculturalism nihilism; one of the main driving forces behind Occidental decline. In the film, Drake's less intellectually equipped son humorously states, "They are going to make comic books out of my hate crimes," yet nothing resembling a hate crime can be found in the entirety of Hobo with a Shotgun. In fact, it seems the writer and director of Hobo with a Shotgun felt it would be safer to show a holocaust of white children in a school bus than any type of true hate crime scenario. Of course, Robert Rodriguez had no problem portraying a Hispanic-led murder campaign of "brown power" in his deplorable piece of cinematic defecation known as Machete. After all, if a real Hobo vigilante were to cleanup the streets of an American city, you can certainly bet he would be liquidating cholo gangstas, rapper prankstas, and NYC banksters. After the negative backlash prompted by liberal film critics in regards to Michael Caine's extermination of wiggers, chavs, male prostitutes, drug dealers, and so called minorities in the excellent anti-politically-correct picture Harry Brown - the P.C. producers of Hobo with a Shotgun probably lacked the testicular fortitude to make Hobo with a Shotgun an equally politically-incorrect-free-for-all. It is a fairly simple concept to understand that to stop the third-worldization of the West, one must stop all third world immigration to the West. Elderly veteran Harry Brown certainly knew how to fix up a town and replenish it from its prior debasement.

As the bitchy Russian-born philosopher Ayn Rand prophesied in her best work of philosophy The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution - the United States is now divided into primitive bickering collectivist tribes (except a united white tribe) who proudly expound racial barbarism. The world of Hobo with a Shotgun certainly features a particular brand of anti-rationalist barbarism and the introduction of a new dark age, yet severely lacks the undeniable racial component so closely linked with this unsettling phenomenon.  The film also features prostitutes, but lacks black pimps?  Also, the director of Hobo with a Shotgun neglected to include any drunken Mexicans that one kind find (with a hand down their pants no less) passed out on urban park benches.  Pretty funny how in American on every job application a person fills out, the employers ask you about your race (as they are an "equal opportunity" employer that hires token minorities before a better skilled white person just to meet a "diversity" quota), yet Hobo with a Shotgun completely ignores any realistic racial elements, as well as the obvious detrimental aspects of "multiculturalism."  Of course, the film was made in a Canada - a country where a certain type of racially oriented speech is now criminalized and anyone that honestly discusses race is already heading down a slippery slope of illegality. Anyway, although hot prostitute Abby might be right in her assertion in Hobo with a Shotgun that a person cannot solve all the world's problems with a shotgun, one has to start from somewhere as the Hobo did during his diligent reign of head-exploding vigilante fun. Despite the fact that Hobo with a Shotgun is a work of sleazy entertainment, it does include a very true observation that is central to the film's plot; most humans are mindless cattle who follow any societal trend that seems to be hot. After the Hobo starts blowing holes in criminals - the citizens also religiously follow his street cleaning trend, yet when the population becomes afraid of vigilante justice after Drake's family threatens to liquidate their children, the city population attempts to crucify their hobo messiah - once again, proving their herd-like lack of personal idealism. For thousands of years Europeans fought in bloody battles and wars to keep barbarian hordes from the East and South from conquering their nations, yet in the late twentieth and early 21st century it only took a little televised mass communication brainwashing for indigenous Occidental populations to freely let hostile invaders (without even putting up a fight) from the former colonies in. Hobo with a Shotgun is certainly not a work of philosophy, but it provides a keen indictment on the automaton-like nature of modern mass-communication-worshiping humanity. I doubt many people will be inspired enough to read Schopenhauer or Nietzsche after watching the film, but at least Hobo with a Shotgun offers westerners some minor "food for thought" that they won't get from watching the latest Hollywood kkkosher-approved-silicone-titty-filled-stoner-comedy.

-Ty E