Review of Repo Man (1984) by Matthew M — 27 Oct 2008

Forget the recent homages to B-Movies of old, this is how to do it. Alex Cox, who directed and wrote the script, creates a briskly paced homage which on the surface may look like a cheeky pulp piece of nonsense but as a lot to say about urban alienation and themes of masculinity.

With dialogue that would make raymond chandler eat soft boiled eggs for months. This feeling of noir with a punk soundtrack reminded me of pictures of modern detroit today, a poverty stricken city where punk was born and that was left decimated when the car industry moved abroad.

I might be going out of my way there, but I think Alex Cox was deliberately making this parallels in order to satirise male masculinity through that most American of all symbols, the car. A cult classic for sure!