Cinemavenger
The funniest, nastiest movie reviews anywhere.
Hobo with a Shotgun
Let's raise a glass in honor of Rutger "The Dutch Master" Hauer, who apparently died two years ago, which should've had a way bigger impact on life, the universe, and everything then it seems to have done. Here's to you, you mad bastard. Proost!
Hauer had a long, somewhat bizarre, proto-Cageian career that you either completely missed or so enjoyed that he became one of your favorite B-movie stars. Ol' Cinemavenger falls into the latter category. As soon as I watched him bring the replicant Roy Batty to life in Blade Runner, I was hooked on his acting style, which was somehow wildly over the top and gently understated at the same time.
Four years later, Hauer scored another critical and financial success as the mysterious, murdery, and oddly suicidal hitchhiker in The Hitcher. If you haven't seen it, fucking watch it. Period. Three years later, Rutger gave the world the best . . . version . . . ever of a blind Vietnam vet/master-swordsman in the epically 80s Blind Fury.
This motherfucker loved his job, because whether it was small roles in big films or leading roles in B-, C-, and D-movies, Hauer was always working. In 2011 he was in 12 movies - that's one per month for those of you playing at home. One of them was called Hobo with a Shotgun, and never has there been a shorter, sweeter, or more honest title.
He's a hobo. With a shotgun. And he takes on the Drake (Brian "Who Doesn't Like To Go" Downey), the criminal overlord of a small town, the Drake's sadistic gang, and the corrupt police force that enables his cruel rule. Sure, the hobo may be filthy and quite possibly schizophrenic, but he's the only one with the balls big enough to take a stand against the powers that be and the injustice they rain down on everyone beneath them.
Who doesn't need a little bit of that kind of karmic ass-kicking in their lives these days, especially when it comes in gloriously gory, grindhouse packaging? As the hilarious, mid-movie headline reads, "Hobo Stops Begging. Demands Change." And as Hauer reminds us as he delivers a wrist-cuttingly nihilistic soliloquy to a maternity ward full of newborns, who doesn't need a little ruttin' Rutger in their lives as well?
We'll miss you, you wonderfully warped, tulip-sniffing, clog-dancing, windmill tilter.
September 24, 2021