Review of Repo Man (1984) by Craig B — 15 Jun 2013

Repo Man, directed by Alex Cox in 1984, is about Otto, an anti-establishment punk who unwittingly joins the repossession business, only to find that the job may be his calling. He's tutored in the arts of car repossession by Bud, an old-hand in the trade. But before Otto has even gotten his feet wet, news comes over the wire that there's a 64' Chevy Malibu roaming the streets with a $20,000 finder's fee. There also happens to be a deadly mystery stashed away in its trunk.

Otto is played by a fresh-faced Emilio Estevez. Many consider this Emilio's ground-breaking role, and possibly the character that stereotyped him as a disaffected youth, but it wasn't his first turn as an angry young man; remember he was Two-Bit in The Outsiders and an obsessed video-game junkie in Nightmares before he even landed the role of Otto, and he would later go on to play similar roles in Maximum Overdrive, Wisdom, and Young Guns, among others.

Harry Dean Stanton lends a good performance as Bud, but he's such a reliable character actor, that news really shouldn't come as any surprise.

My favorite performance in the film is Tracey Walter as Miller, the burnout repo-mechanic with some saliently crazy ideas about space aliens and time travel. His role is small, but he delivers the most memorable quotes. I particularly like his little diatribe about John Wayne's sexual orientation. It makes me laugh every time.

Repo Man is laden with subversive humor that lampoons the commerce driven mentality of the 80's. People are dehumanized into by-products of the bigger picture, and even epiphanies can be found in the trunk of a car. I especially love the generic-brand produce that shows up everywhere in the film. For instance, when Bud invites Otto to get some drinks, the next shot shows them picking up a six-pack at the local convenience store: each can is white with the label "Drink." A younger audience might not even remember that such branding actually existed...stark black and white product lines completely devoid of individuality and character, perhaps not as generically absurd as Repo Man shows it, but still eerily close to the truth. The nihilistic attitude that permeates the film didn't even make me blink in 1984. Now, it sticks out like a wristwatch on a Roman legionnaire. On the other hand, if 80's teen flicks were my only barometer, I'd think punks were more prevalent than Christians in the United States.

Which leads to me Repo Man's greatest asset...the soundtrack. With acts like Iggy Pop, The Circle Jerks, Fear, Suicidal Tendencies, Black Flag, and The Plugz peppered throughout the film, it's hard not to feel the joyous angst. And Repo Man isn't Cox's only triumph in this regard. Sid & Nancy, his excellent biopic about the Sex Pistols, and Straight to Hell, his otherwise wretched neo-punk spaghetti western, have peerless soundtracks. I have Alex Cox to thank for some of my earliest musical leanings.

As a side note, it seems that Alex Cox has written, directed, and canned a new film which was originally supposed to open either this month or next month. The flick is called Repo Chick, and many film buffs are drawing the conclusion it's a sequel to Repo Man. Alex Cox, possibly trying to mollify his former employee, Universal Studios, denies that Repo Chick is a sequel. Universal Studios, along with just about everybody else, doesn't really believe him, and his former employer had been leaning on him to stop making the movie. Universal has also apparently considered releasing a two-year old Jude Law film that had been shelved, originally titled The Repossession Mambo, now conveniently re-titled Repo Men!, at around the same time that Repo Chick is supposed to hit the big screen. Coincidence? Alex Cox doesn't think so and has vented his anger on his blog page.

Long story short, sometime in the near future, we'll be getting two Repo Man sequels hitting the theaters; one flick which likely is a sequel, even though the director says it isn't, and one sequel put out by the original studio, which really isn't a sequel but is itching to ride on Repo Chick's back like a blood-engorged tick. It's all over the internet, so movie buffs looking for a reading diversion might want to Google "Repo Chick" and watch the sparks fly.

So, if you're a castaway from Generation X trying to catch a little nostalgia in a bottle, or better yet, a newbie trying to polish up on your cult flick trivia before the "non-sequel" sequel hits the theaters, you could do a lot worse than Repo Man.