Repo Man (1984)
Is Repo Man the 2001: A Space Odyssey of punk absurdism? That’s how it feels by the end, as it strains goofily towards a kind of ambitious nonsense. In Stanley Kubrick’s science fiction epic, a black monolith ties each of the movie’s parts together, representing sudden leaps in human evolution and consciousness. In Repo Man, the 1984 cult satire from Alex Cox, the monolith stand-in is a Chevy Malibu. If it represents anything, it would have to be greed or possibly the American Dream — and really, what’s the difference, Cox seems to ask.
The story follows a young punk named Otto Maddox (Emilio Estevez) as he enters the seedy and mysterious world of L.A. repo men under the wing of Bud (Harry Dean Stanton). Bud teaches him how to steal cars and dress right to avoid suspicion, and together they drive around the city looking for their next target and occasionally scrapping with the competition.
Their big payday appears to be on the horizon with the aforementioned Malibu. If they can catch it, they’ll score $20,000. But you’ll want to be careful with this one. Don’t open the trunk if you don’t want to be instantly vaporized by what’s back there, which may be either dead aliens or a neutron bomb.
It doesn’t really matter. What matters is the money. Even with competing repo men and shadowy government agents looking for the car, too, Bud and Otto are single-minded in their quest. And why not? Money is what fuels every other possibility in American life. You have it, or you don’t.
Cox has plenty of fun exploring this idea. Watching Repo Man is like watching someone on speed tell you about a dream they half remember. Events pile up on one another. Threads are picked up, lost, and picked up again but never developed, like Otto’s “relationship” with a young woman named Miller (Tracey Walter), who is somehow mixed up with the agents looking for the car.
Overall, it wasn’t really for me, but I can appreciate its legacy. While firmly a product of the Reagan era, it’s timeless in the sense that we’re all still chasing that Malibu. It sure would be nice to have the money, but watch out — you might get burned.