Review of Repo Man (1984) by Stuart K — 05 Aug 2013

The directorial debut of Alex Cox, who got lucky by being able to study film at UCLA, where he made a couple of short films. He had intended to make this for a meagre $70,000. Then Cox met ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith, who loved the idea, and was able to get Universal Pictures to put up a bigger budget, complete with a big cast.

Cox was lucky to be given this for his feature debut, and it's a dark and funny satire on Reagan's America. Otto Maddox (Emilio Estevez) is a punk rocker living in Los Angeles, who has been fired from his job at a supermarket, and his parents have given his education money to a televangelist.

Frustrated, Otto meets Bud (Harry Dean Stanton), a repossession agent who goes around repossessing cars and collection commission for doing so, Bud invites Otto to come and work for him. Otto is disgusted at the thought, but he soon fits in, and comes to enjoy this life.

But, when Otto learns of a 1964 Chevrolet Malibu is wanted for £20,000. He goes looking for it, but there's others looking for this car, because it holds a dark secret in it's trunk, something out of this world.

It's a very enjoyable and daft romp, although it was dumped on release at the time because Universal didn't know what to do with it, but it won a cult audience and it made a profit and got Cox (briefly) some fame and fortune, it's a shame it didn't last for him.