REPO MAN. Directed and written by Alex Cox; produced by Jonathan Wacks and Peter McCarthy for Universal. Starring Emilio Estevez, Harry Dean Stanton and Tracey Walter. Rated R (language and violence).
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With the World Series just around the corner, it's fitting that we're seeing some movies coming right out of left field these days. A few weeks ago it was the ill-fated Buckaroo Banzai, and now we have Repo Man. It attempts the same tone of weirdness and crazy humor, but with less polish and more success. It's crazy, vulgar, unrealistic, and lots of fun.
Tired of stacking cans, Otto (Estevez) quits his job in a grocery store only to fall in with Bud (Stanton), who repossesses cars. Despite his initial aversion to the idea, he eventually becomes an enthusiastic repo man himself. He even replaces his dangly earring with a simple stud, and puts a sports jacket over his T-shirt.
The car getting most of the repo attention lately is an unlikely looking 1964 Chevy. But there's something in the trunk that a lot people are after. How Otto eventually gets together with the car and its mysterious contents is what Repo Man is, sort of, about.
Estevez is a good Otto, who is a deceptively simple character. He has to be both an angry young man (for teenager empathy) and an innocent being initiated into the weird society of repo men. Then he even gets to be like Richard Dreyfuss at the end of Close Encounters.
The rest of the cast is an assortment of punks, mysterious agents, sleazy good repo men and sleazy bad repo men. Stanton is particularly good early on as Bud briefs Otto on the repo code. The creepy Walter is Miller, resident crazy in a world of craziness. He gives a speech about coincidence which should alert you to all kinds of unexpected connections which crop up in the rest of the movie.
Most of these coincidences are throw-aways. For example, there is a T.V. or radio going in most of the scenes. And there is more wit in this background "noise" than in some whole movies. So stay sharp. Just one exercise for the viewer: Try to find a single brand name of anything (except cars) anywhere in the movie. The way Repo Man bucks the idea of everyday realism through familiar logos (which has come to be known as "product placement") is wonderful satire.
In some ways, Repo Man is just another kids' movie, with a hero who grows up through adversity and a supporting cast of adults who are ineffectual, evil or otherwise undesirable role models.
But this movie has such a bizarre sense of humor. It not only turns the usual cliches of such movies on their heads; it also creates its own crazy, out-of-kilter, slightly eerie world. So it goes far beyond the ordinary coming-of-age movie and ends up somewhere 'way out in the Twilight Zone. Repo Man is truly imaginative entertainment.
September 19, 1984