Pure Garbage

Hobo With a Shotgun (2011)

A lot of attention has been devoted to what should be a minor footnote in the history of exploitation cinema.  Hobo With a Shotgun isn't the first movie of its kind; it's not even the first movie in recent history to ape its multiple influences.  What distinguishes Hobo With a Shotgun from genuine faux-exploitation misfires like Machete is the sense of awareness that is present in the film and the sincerity that follows from it.  Many modern retro-leaning films that raid the sleaze bin of exploitation cinema do so in an almost condescending manner, taking what is "cool" from it, the gratuitous nudity and violence, and cast aside the charm and goofiness that make those movies "uncool."

Hobo With a Shotgun wastes little time on irony or posturing, instead opting to embrace every last cliche the exploitation and low-budget action genres can offer.  There's the stoic hero, the irredeemably evil villains, the hooker with a heart of gold, and the gallons (and gallons) of blood.

None of this is wasted.  Instead of using these cliches to make a movie mimicking sleaze cinema from 42nd Street theaters, this movies looks like it could have played on a double bill with Death Wish 3 or The Exterminator 2 or, blog favorite, Street Trash at those same theaters.  Characters respond irrationally, the villains have a cartoonishly insane disregard for the concept of proportionality, and the violence goes so far into the realm of bad taste that it's almost impossible to take the overall film seriously.

What brings things back down to earth, and holds the film together, is the package the film is wrapped in.  Crafted with a garish sense for the macabre, Hobo looks like the most beautiful yet insanely terrifying acid trip you've ever stumbled into.  Blood can alternately look like candy-colored syrup or mind-bending molasses; a yellow cloud of sleaze looms over many scenes creating a stifling sense of claustrophobic panic; and, every character has been designed to look like they've stepped right out of a back alley abortion, ripped from the womb of Charlie Bronson and Alejandro Jodorowsky's deranged love child.

This isn't a movie that simply asks you to remember what sleazy B-movies used to be like.  This is a movie that wants you to experience the gloriously depraved mania of villains who use manhole covers in place of guillotines.  While Hobo With a Shotgun will never be seen as a "conventionally good" film, it contains a reckless spirit and frightening creativity that most "good" movies will never approach.  In short, it's the best piece of trash ever made.