Repo Man

1984's REPO MAN is probably my favorite punk movie.  How it was released by a major studio is a story I'd love to hear sometime.  It's as if the early '70s "inmates running the asylum" in Hollywood mantra made a brief return.   I first saw the movie on HBO as a fifteen or sixteen year old.  Rewatching as someone over 50, it felt even more potent and relatable.  I've never been a "punk" by any definition.  At least not outwardly.  But for much of my life I've been able to identity with the sentiments.  The suspicion of societal norms and expectation.  The disenchantment with the Establishment and its infrastructure.  The short fuse with others' games and general bullshit.  Ooh, do I sound a bit more punk, now?

I don't believe you need to have those feelings to enjoy REPO MAN, easily one of the sharpest and most imaginative social comedies of the 1980s.   Director Alex Cox's script is laugh out loud funny more than once, and has a real insight into coming of age and middle age.  And the bondage of materialism.  And televangelism.  It's a bitter satire of the time, when Reagan's wave of conservatism echoed the 1950s.  A sci-fi tale with elements of Atomic Era paranoia. 

Otto (Emilio Estevez) is a self described "suburban punk" in Los Angeles who drifts from job to job and seems to have no prospects until a rumpled guy named Bud (Harry Dean Stanton) offers him $25 to drive a car to pick up his pregnant wife.  Turns out the story was a scam, and the car was a repo.  Otto is pissed, but soon finds he likes the gig, even when he's shot at.  That's part of the thrill.  Bud sort of tutors the kid, informing him that the life of repo men is "intense."  This is a selling point.

Meanwhile, a very strange guy named J. Frank Parnell (Fox Harris) is driving all over L.A. in a '64 Chevy Malibu that has aliens in the trunk.  The kind from outer space. The kind that will vaporize you if you open the lid.   The CIA and UFO scientists are on his trail.  The car becomes coveted by rival repos and eventually fetches a $20,000 bounty. 

The film arrives at what I consider to be a reasonable conclusion, set to The Plugz's "Reel Ten", a choice instrumental.  The entire soundtrack is great.  Iggy Pop contributes the title track, and punk legends such as Black Flag and The Circle Jerks (who also appear) contribute.  REPO MAN is smart, funny, and just plain fascinating.  Cox brings across the punk attitude without being strident or off putting.  His script is busy, filled with colorful characters (one of whom is played by cult fave Tracey Walter) and consistently amusing. The generic label running gag is entertaining.  I especially liked how characters occasionally verbalized the film's targets : 

"Let's go do some crimes."

"Yeah.  Let's go get sushi and not pay!"

This sort of thing might be pretentious and feel self-conscious in the wrong hands.  It always feels right at home in REPO MAN.