Repo Man

Repo Man

The punk mentality might be one of the hardest things to capture within the framework of a feature film. Oh, you can have punk rock music on the soundtrack, you can depict punk characters with mohawks and shit running around causing trouble, but the actual, pure nilhilism that comes with the entire movement and thought processes of essentially hating the world, everyone in it and yourself while ultimately figuring that we’d all probably be better off dead and deservingly so is a worldview that cinema rarely if ever achieves no matter how hard anybody tries. In 1984, this cult classic was unleashed upon the world by one Alex Cox who later went on to helm the Sex Pistols biopic Sid And Nancy (one character even comes strolling onscreen wearing a Sid Vicious t-shirt) and Cox appears to be somebody who smartly realized that in order for this type of material and mindset to work within a movie context, there has to be at least some elements of social satire at play and the entire existential nature of the material has to be properly nailed in the writing. Depicting a world that was obviously extremely critical of the early 80s timeframe in which it was made with some stunningly realized location work showing the more seedier sections of LA, the film makes a couple of outdated observations about cultural aspects of the time like the evils of televangelism and the shameless swindling preachers who brainwashed the Faithful into sending them money so that they could live high on the hog prior to dying and going to Hell themselves (the one time in the movie that the main character is around his parents it turns out that they are so transfixed at the TV preacher whom they are watching all while smoking grass that they can barely even notice that their only son is in the room and trying to talk to them). Other noticeable aspects include the most generic non product placements ever seen in recent memory with items simply labeled “food”, “beer” and “drink” and the more disturbing and relevant sight of homeless people laying in the street having died some time ago being picked up by guys in Haz-mat suits for proper disposal. Into this world we have Emilio Estevez at the beginning of his incredible run before being Mighty Ducked into Hollywood oblivion as Otto, a crew cutted punk rocker shown in the opening scene being fired from his supermarket job for casually telling his boss to fuck off. The film dives headfirst into the punk lifestyle showing such bits as whole entire groups of people just randomly fighting each other in the streets for no reason, seeing one of their own getting their parents’ house free for the weekend and having 50 of them crashing there for an all out party and of course drugs, drugs and more drugs. One day Estevez is just walking down the street with nothing better to do when up comes driving an odd little fellow named Bud (Harry Dean Stanton, mysteriously top billed when it’s obvious that Estevez is the star here). Stanton offers the kid a chance to make some money and after initially being rebuffed by Estevez thinking that he’s just a queer cruising for some ass, Stanton makes it clear just what it is that he wants him to do which is to get behind the wheel of a nearby car (claiming that it’s also his) and then follow behind him as they drive to a safer neighborhood. Estevez takes the offer and after nearly running over the Mexicans who owned the vehicle, they arrive at the repo lot where Stanton works and the formal offer is then made to have Estevez join the team with it being explained that the “bounty” can be different for each car that they repossess depending on the make and model. With that being said, we are also shown what appears to be a crazy scientist (Fox Harris) driving erratically on his way to LA in a Chevy Malibu (where exactly he thinks he’s going is never stated) that appears to have…SOMETHING in the trunk. Exactly what it is is never adequately explained except that it appears to be some kind of a massive power source, one so powerful that opening the trunk up and looking at it directly results in the unlucky person being instantly disintegrated. Regardless, the government is very much looking to reclaim whatever it is in there and when they see that the Malibu has made its way into LA, they place a whopping $20,000 bounty on it for the first repo man to find it and turn it in, a development that of course has Stanton, Estevez and the rest of their crew up in arms about being the first ones to find it. Fortunately, instead of making this a “race to the finish” type of storyline, Cox smartly takes the time to develop his characters through an almost random series of scenes in and around LA itself that enhances the overall feel for the area at the time in which it was made while still maintaining that punk esthetic and of course keeping it funny too with Stanton generating a lot of laughs with his cantankerous old bastard routine (something that must have gone on a lot on set as he and Cox were said to NOT get along) and Estevez having fun reacting to a lot of the absurd situations which he finds himself in including meeting a VERY cute girl (Olivia Barash) only to find out that she is a complete conspiracy theory nut and even works at a special center filled with people who are preparing for their latest fruitcake belief to come true and (in her words) be announced during a major press conference which Estevez doesn’t care about but he does like the sex. There’s also Estevez trying to repo a car before being surrounded by the five black sons of the owner who go to town on him and when asked by the others at the lot who had done this to him, he instead replies with his old boss at the supermarket who winds up getting jumped by them as a result. Although there are some good actors (and performances by lesser knowns) on hand, the other major performance here that comes to mind is Tracey (Bob The Goon) Walter as the lot’s oddball mechanic who doesn’t even know how to drive a car but who keeps an eccentric philosophy that when you really sit down and think about it you realize that it is really the most fascinating bit in the movie from a purely spiritual point of view (and naturally Estevez asks him if he did a lot of acid in the “hippie days”). Eventually the Malibu itself starts getting pinpointed by the LA repo men while the scientist behind the wheel is becoming more and more erratic with hardly any idea if he even has a destination and that’s when the film starts laying down all of its chips on going into full blown disorienting surrealism and the approach works since the viewer stops questioning things like character motivation or even plausibility and just manages to hang on tight for the final ride down as the question of just what that super powerful thing in the trunk really is gets more and more intriguing. The crazy scientist (after being tricked into picking up Estevez) seems to imply that it is some sort of nuclear device while other neither right nor wrong guesses include some kind of alien technology or even aliens themselves who are somehow standing guard in the trunk and protecting something. Either way, the emission of radiation is just about the only thing that we know for sure is coming from the Malibu as it winds up falling into various different hands including those of some old punker friends of Estevez who jack it just to go for a little joyride. As for Stanton, he seems to suddenly become particularly obsessed with the car although if the reason for that is to merely grab the 20K bounty so that he can open up his own lot with it or maybe even something much deeper in his (and other people’s) subconsciousness in that the Malibu (which eventually takes on a greenish glow) actually represents the opportunity to transcend onto some sort of higher plane of existence for those deemed worthy enough to be allowed to drive or even come near it once it reaches its maximum level of power (the scientist even mentions to Estevez that radiation is not nearly as dangerous as it’s claimed to be) and thus be allowed to escape from the current shitty lives which they lead (a general dislike of “normal” people is a common trait of Stanton’s character) which could certainly be seen as being a metaphor here where only the “Chosen Few” could advance to the next level of spiritual ascension, but the path in getting to that point is probably more fun than the destination itself, a wild ride from a brilliant filmmaker who sadly became persona non grata in the film industry way too soon…

10/10

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