Hobo With a Shotgun Review

Rating: 4/5

Exploitation is a genre mostly associated with the 70's, but it's not dead, not by far. For those of you who don't know. An "exploitation film" is a bad movie that is made for almost nothing and relies on people who like naked girls and ultra-violence to make money. The most well-known examples of exploitation are 1969's Blood Feast and '75's Caligula. Modern exploitation movies include Friday the 13th, Kick-Ass, and Sucker Punch. And now, Hobo With a Shotgun.

A hobo (Rutger Hauer), rides into a new city called Hopeville, and it's name is certainly not true. Criminals and corrupt cops run amok, drugs are pumped through kids, and honest folk live in fear of the dastardly Drake (Brian Downey). Now the hobo must fight back with the help of a hooker with a heart of gold (Molly Dunsworth), and well, a shotgun.

Hobo With a Shotgun does something right that most movies fail to do: successful parody. By that, I mean that the movie parodies crass exploitation without becoming crass exploitation. In the case of Natural Born Killers or Kick-Ass, both movies attempt to be tongue in cheek parodies of mean spirited ultra-violence in media, but become mean spirited ultra-violence. As a result, Hobo With a Shotgun turns out great.

This is one of those movies that does everything badly on purpose. In one scene, there are naked women hitting a dead guy covered in blood. Why? Because it's naked women!! That is the essence of exploitation. All the violence is hilariously over the top, and the story is delightfully simple. The acting is campy fun, the script o insane, and it melds well.

Hobo With a Shotgun is the good type of exploitation. It knows exactly what it is and has fun with it. Bad exploitation is a movie that doesn't care, or tries to be deep but ends up having no story and sticks in violence and nudity for the hell of it (i.e. NBK or Kick-Ass). Overall, the movie isn't subtle or smart, but it doesn't care and just goes with it. Try it out.