Hobo with a Shotgun 2011

Kathleen Murphy, MSN Movies: Does this cinematic jeu d'esprit ever gobsmack your eyes and nerve endings. Read more

Mike Hale, New York Times: Will leave most viewers bored and uneasy, especially in scenes like the burning alive of a busful of young children. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: The sight of Hauer going postal with a double-barreled blaster is about on par with Liam Neeson mowing down Albanian sex traffickers in Taken-in other words...kerfawesome! Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: 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. Read more

Ted Fry, Seattle Times: It's all in good fun and sometimes a little clever; "Hobo" shoots low and scores an explosive spray of guts, if not glory. Read more

Noel Murray, AV Club: It's a hyper-violent, self-conscious throwback, with the sickly plastic aroma of a tape that's been gathering dust in the corner of a video store since 1984. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: 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. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: 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. Read more

William Goss, Film.com: What really puts this over-the-top extravaganza over the top is Hauer's ferocious and oddly sincere performance. Read more

Duane Byrge, Hollywood Reporter: Double-barreled mayhem as if Sergio Leone designed a video-game. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Gore hounds will appreciate Hobo with a Shotgun, but it is so wan that even squeamish viewers will shrug it off with a yawn. Read more

Scott Tobias, NPR: 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. Read more

V.A. Musetto, New York Post: Japan's Takashi Miike has the formula down pat, but Eisener has no idea how to give violence a touch of class. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: Quite the most appalling piece of junk I have seen lately, Hobo With a Shotgun just lies there like an autopsy. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: 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. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: What's not to like? Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The movie just blows chunks. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: 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. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Hobo with a Shotgun takes on genre filmmaking with a vengeance and a toque. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: Sick but fun. Read more

Andrew Barker, Variety: Picked up by Magnet, "Shotgun" should satisfy midnight movie gore-hounds. Read more

Mark Holcomb, Village Voice: 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. Read more

Sean O'Connell, Washington Post: "Hobo" breathes new life into the demented realm of grindhouse cinema - a world that had grown pretty stale to this point. Read more