Hobo with a Shotgun (DVD/Blu-Ray) - Dir. Jason Eisener. Starring Rutger Hauer, Pasha Ebrahimi, Robb Wells.
A hobo (Rutger Hauer) rides the rails into a city to pursue his dream of owning a lawnmower. But he finds the city (called Scum Town, which should have been his first clue) overrun with violence and corruption, and instead of mowing lawns, he mows justice. With a shotgun.*
And that's pretty much the movie. The title isn't some tricky metaphor like Bird on a Wire or Naked Lunch-films that had outrageously little to do with birds or nudity. You came for a hobo with a shotgun, and by God, that's what you're getting.
This is a low-budget Canadian project, and the second of the fake Grindhouse trailers (after Machete) to be expanded into a full feature. Both of them are tributes to violent 1970s exploitation films, but while Machete had the look and polish of a modern-day movie, Hobo takes its trashy roots much more seriously. It's badly acted (apart from Hauer) and ugly, with tinny sound, blown-out colors, and jittery visuals. It's also even more violent than Machete; just about every essential and non-essential body part a person can have is shown being chopped or blown off. At some point, a bus full of schoolchildren is torched with a flamethrower, and it doesn't even seem very shocking anymore.
A film like this has a simple formula to follow: bad guy does something bad, bad guy gets blasted with hobo shotgun. What's strange is that it isn't as successful at this as it should be.
The hobo, to start with, takes a surprisingly long time to finally take up his shotgun, and until this point the movie is just gore porn with no payoff. The moments of justice against the multitude of main villains are delayed even longer-so long that by the time it happens we barely remember why we were supposed to hate them.
Nor are the villains particularly strong to begin with. Shrill and Newfoundland-accented, their screen presence is awkward and small. These may be friends of the director starring in a deliberately bad movie, but we don't always need to be reminded of the fact.
Hobo with a Shotgun delivers on the gory horrors and occasional giggles that B-movie fans look for, but unlike Machete, it fails to transcend the low-rent films it lampoons.
Rated R for intestines all over the place.
2.5 out of 5
The Lincoln Lawyer (DVD/Blu-Ray) - Dir. Brad Furman. Starring Matthew McConaughey, Marisa Tomei, William H. Macy.
A slick and slightly shady defense attorney (Matthew McConaughey) starts to question his values and fear for his safety when he discovers that one of his clients may have framed another for murder.
An interesting conspiracy at its core (once you forgive some medium-sized plot holes), a growing sense of danger, and some clever, if muddily presented, legal wrangling make this a well-assembled courtroom thriller that keeps the viewer's interest.
McConaughey plays the same smirking rascal he always has. For those who are counting, he manages to go 42 minutes without taking off his shirt.
The supporting cast, which includes William H. Macy, Bryan Cranston, and Marisa Tomei, is one of the better ones assembled this year. Unfortunately, all of them but Macy play parts that could have been written out with no harm done. Tomei in particular, as McConaughey's ex-wife, serves no purpose but to provide a target for vague threats against the main character's family.
The film is damaged slightly by some silly twists in the ending, which feels a little rushed.
Bonus: the movie works as a sequel to My Cousin Vinny if you imagine that Vinny got into really good shape and divorced Marisa Tomei.
Worthwhile.
Rated R for alleged violence.
3.5 out of 5
*This is one reason they don't let me write movie taglines.
