Hobo with a Shotgun

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This gory, gleefully over-the-top revenge fantasy stars Rutger Hauer as the Hobo, a bum who rolls into town hoping to start over, only to find his adopted city saturated in violence and ruled by a vicious crime lord known as the Drake (Brian Downey). The Hobo's answer? Pick up his handy pump-action scattergun and start laying waste to crooks, corrupt cops and every other lowlife who crosses his path.
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Netflix Rating: 3.3
Rotten Tomatoes: Fresh 67%: It certainly isn't subtle -- or even terribly smart -- but as a gleefully gory homage to low-budget exploitation thrillers, Hobo with a Shotgun packs plenty of firepower.
Fresh: 65 Rotten: 32 Rotten Tomatoes page
Top Rotten Tomatoes Critics: The movie just blows chunks. full review

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Picked up by Magnet, "Shotgun" should satisfy midnight movie gore-hounds. full review

Andrew Barker, Variety

A merrily blood-soaked homage to the vigilante action movies of the 1970s and early 1980s, "Hobo'' is a good idea in theory that's brought down by the banality of its practice. full review

Ty Burr, Boston Globe

"Hobo" breathes new life into the demented realm of grindhouse cinema - a world that had grown pretty stale to this point. full review

Sean O'Connell, Washington Post

Even connoisseurs of the genre (and I confess, I'm not one) will find the cheesy chopfests and gratuitous gore less than exciting as one urban prosthetics-strewn bloodbath begets the next. full review

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

What really puts this over-the-top extravaganza over the top is Hauer's ferocious and oddly sincere performance. full review

William Goss, Film.com

A grim, visually ugly, intermittently funny-occasionally preachy piece with only the estimable Mr. Hauer to recommend it. full review

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel

Will leave most viewers bored and uneasy, especially in scenes like the burning alive of a busful of young children. full review

Mike Hale, New York Times

Japan's Takashi Miike has the formula down pat, but Eisener has no idea how to give violence a touch of class. full review

V.A. Musetto, New York Post

What's not to like? full review

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Double-barreled mayhem as if Sergio Leone designed a video-game. full review

Duane Byrge, Hollywood Reporter

A hobo hops off a freight train in a nameless North American Gomorrah run by a sadistic crime king. Then said hobo cleans up the place by shooting buckets full of guts. full review

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

Quite the most appalling piece of junk I have seen lately, Hobo With a Shotgun just lies there like an autopsy. full review

Rex Reed, New York Observer

The setup could also be read as an allegory of/justification for Dubya's invasion of Iraq (think about it), but that presumes more of an engagement with the non-cinematic world than Hobo ever really displays. full review

Mark Holcomb, Village Voice

Does this cinematic jeu d'esprit ever gobsmack your eyes and nerve endings. full review

Kathleen Murphy, MSN Movies

There's something appealing about the movie's unpretentious carnival of carnage, although I could have done without the flamethrower assault on a school bus to raise the stakes. full review

David Edelstein, New York Magazine

If, on the other hand, you appreciate a droll and savvy satire of the melodramatic excesses of seventies vigilante thrillers from a filmmaker who clearly knows his stuff, then get in the ticket line. full review

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail

Hobo with a Shotgun takes on genre filmmaking with a vengeance and a toque. full review

Peter Howell, Toronto Star

The closest thing the film gets to a message? "When life gives you razor blades, you make a baseball bat covered in razor blades." Sounds like a quote for a Successories poster in hell. full review

Scott Tobias, NPR

full review by Amy Biancolli, San Francisco Chronicle