Review of Repo Man (1984) by Grant W — 02 Nov 2009

Once upon a time in the 1980's, and long before I'd ever been to film school, the closest thing I knew to an avant garde movie was the punk rock classic REPO MAN (Alex Cox, 1984). Otto (Emilio Estevez) is a white suburban punk, the '80's equivalent of Alex DeLarge in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (Stanley Kubrick, 1971) whose life of debauchery gets interrupted when he gets drawn into the world of repo men - those guys who repossess your car when you don't pay your car note. He becomes one of them, and finds that the life of a legal car thief is the one for him, until he picks up a girl on the run (Olivia Barash) who tells him about a car with dead aliens in the trunk. Soon he finds that everybody is after this car and the $20G reward that goes with it, and then... things really get strange.

Look, a plot description is not going to adequately describe this movie because the plot or the characters are not the reason you watch it. This movie is the filmic version of the punk aesthetic, which is hard to explain, but think Billy Idol if he was serious, or "Vivian" from "The Young Ones." It's mostly wide shots, the dialogue is mostly vulgar and outrageous, it's got tons of non sequitors - in short, it's as close to a French New Wave film as an American film can get. The idea, as was the case of the French's attempts at Brechtian cinema, is to create a film so abrasive and so un-film-like that it reflects the anger and angst of its audience (who Otto is supposed to represent). Well... in ideal terms. Because this is America (even though it has a British director), it gets the style and misses the substance. But that doesn't make it less fun to watch.

REPO MAN is not a normal, linear film, so it may not appeal to everybody. It's most like NAPOLEON DYNAMITE (Jared Hess, 2004) in terms of structure. But if you can check your need for classical Hollywood narrative at the door, it's loads of fun. It's weird, it's insane, it's punk, pure and simple. Deal with it.