Hobo with a Shotgun
Short description
A drifter arrives in a city ruled by crime, where a local boss and his two violent sons hold power and corrupt police offer no help to anyone who crosses them. The homeless man wants only to settle down and earn money for a lawnmower he needs for work, but after he witnesses the family threatening a boy, he takes matters into his own hands. When the authorities refuse to act, he arms himself with a shotgun and sets out to bring justice to the streets, confronting criminals, crooked officers and other predators along the way.
Jason Eisener directed the film, his second feature-length credit after Grindhouse in 2007 and before V/H/S/2 and The ABCs of Death in 2013 and Kids vs. Aliens in 2023. John Davies wrote the screenplay, and Rutger Hauer leads the cast as the Hobo, joined by Molly Dunsworth, Gregory Smith, Robb Wells, Brian Downey and Nick Bateman. The production, mounted on a budget of about 3 million USD by Canadian and American companies, grew out of a fake trailer Eisener made for the Grindhouse double feature.
Audience response has been moderate: the film holds a 6.1 rating from roughly 50,000 votes on IMDb and a 5.9 from a much smaller pool on TMDB. A critics' rating of 5.9 from 119 reviews places professional opinion almost exactly alongside viewer opinion, with neither group embracing the film strongly. Its brief 86-minute runtime matches its brisk, confrontational approach.
What's left behind the scenes
- David Brunt from the trailer for "Grindhouse" (Robert Rodriguez, Eli Roth, Quentin Tarantino, Edgar Wright, Rob Zombie, 2007) was originally supposed to play the main character, but he disappeared without telling anyone. When he eventually reappeared, he admitted he was simply afraid of the responsibility. He was given a cameo role.
- During the scene where the homeless man begins to administer justice, music by Michel Colombier from the popular Soviet release film "Private Detective" ("L'alpagueur", 1976) starring Jean-Paul Belmondo is heard.
- Climbing out of the shopping cart, Rutger Hauer lost his balance and fell, and director Jason Eisener chose to leave the fall in the film.
- Strictly speaking, the word "Hobo" is not quite synonymous with the word "homeless person." The term originated in the western United States in the late 19th century and referred to itinerant workers. The number of hobos increased significantly with the onset of the Great Depression, as people had to look for work far from home. Over time, hobos formed their own subculture, including special slang, a system of identification marks, and so on. Among those who had to be hobos were Jack London, Louis L'Amour, and George Orwell.
- Rutger Hauer came up with the idea to cut holes in a hat and use it as a mask.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
