Double feature of the week: Stranger in a Strange Land

The stranger’s story has been a staple for westerns for a long time. Films like “Shane” (1953) and “The Ox-Bow Incident” (1943) have used this trope very well. Clint Eastwood made a career out of playing this character and this year’s “Rango” has done it better than I would have ever expected from an animated feature about a lizard. But this type of character is not limited to the Wild West. So, this double feature is include a couple films that show that while the time a place change, some things stay the same.

The first film to check out is a classic among classics. That is to say that it is one of the greatest films from one of the absolute greatest filmmakers of all time. Akira Kurosawa’s “Yojimbo” (1961) is about wandering masterless samurai, Sanjuro Kuwabatake (Toshiro Mifune). He finds himself in a small town ripped apart by two warring factions. Being the savvy business samurai he is, he decides it would best serve himself to scam each side into hiring him as protection against the other. Spaghetti western fans will probably find this plot pretty familiar. That’s because it is the basis for Sergio Leone’s “Fistful of Dollars” (1964). It was so similar in fact that the “Yojimbo” producers filed for and won a lawsuit because of those similarities.

Next up we have a much newer film that I’m sure will someday be seen as a classic in its own right. Jason Eisener’s “Hobo With A Shotgun” (2011) stars Rutger Hauer as the titular character who rides into a new town on the railroad, only to find that it is disgustingly overrun with criminal activity. Aghast by the state of the world he has found himself in, he does what any Good Samaritan would do. He befriends a local prostitute, buys a shotgun at the nearest pawn shop and begins the very delicate process of cleansing the criminal element from streets he calls home. This movie is a hell of a lot of fun. It comes complete with copious amounts of gore, cartoonish violence and characters and a monologue that can’t help but bring a tear to your eye.

Enjoy.