Initially Hobo with a Shotgun feels like an unofficial sequel to Robocop. No, it doesn’t take place in Detroit, but it is filled with similarly sadistic criminals, but worst because now there is not even a minimal attempt to fight back by the government. Hobo with a Shotgun was originally an exploitation movie trailer featured in Grindhouse double feature: Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror and Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof. Like some exploitation movies, there is more than sensational violence if one looks past the gallons of blood and intentionally wooden acting by the supporting characters. Hobo with a Shotgun is about how in society, we have a high tolerance for obvious brutality and rarely if ever stand up to it until an outsider who remembers how things were/should be finally speaks the truth and acts on it. Hobo with a Shotgun moves from dystopian future to a suggestion that the world is more invidious than an inevitable decay-there is a demonic influence as if the town sits on a hell mouth. Hobo with a Shotgun is the film personification of Ephesians 6:12, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” I’m not suggesting that Hobo with a Shotgun is a masterpiece, but it IS playing dumb. It is using exploitation cinema to speak harsh truths about dehumanization of the poor, the victim/victimizer nature of the frightened middle class, the unnatural relationship between adults and children, men and women (can you say, misogyny), family with family. I would watch Rutger Hauer in anything and I have seen him in a lot of bad movies, but Hobo with a Shotgun isn’t one of them. If Zoe Bell was in it instead of Molly Dunsworth, who did a fine job, Hobo with a Shotgun would be a must see. Why would a hobo choose to get off of a train in what was obviously the most unwelcoming place on the line? Only God knows. Extreme violence and explicit violent sexual language. Not a must see, but if you do, you may get more than you bargained for-a call to action. “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”-Ephesians 6:13