Repo Man (film)

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Repo Man is a 1984 American science fiction comedy film written and directed by Alex Cox. It stars Harry Dean Stanton and Emilio Estevez, and was produced by Jonathan Wacks and Peter McCarthy with executive producer Michael Nesmith.

Repo Man received widespread acclaim, and was considered one of the best films of 1984. It has achieved cult status.

Video Repo Man (film)

Plot

In the Mojave Desert, a policeman pulls over a 1964 Chevrolet Malibu driven by Dr. J. Frank Parnell. The policeman opens the trunk, sees a blinding flash of white light, and is instantly vaporized, leaving only his boots behind.

Otto Maddox, a young punk rocker in L.A., is fired from his job as a supermarket stock clerk. His girlfriend leaves him for his best friend. Depressed and broke, Otto is wandering the streets when a man named Bud drives up and offers him $25 to drive a car out of the neighborhood.

Otto follows Bud in the car to the Helping Hand Acceptance Corporation, where he learns that the car he drove was being repossessed. He refuses to join Bud as a "repo man," and goes to his parents' house. He learns that his burned-out ex-hippie parents have donated the money they promised him for finishing school to a crooked televangelist. He decides to take the repo job.

After repossessing a flashy red Cadillac, Otto sees a girl named Leila running down the street. He gives her a ride to her workplace, the United Fruitcake Outlet. On the way, Leila shows Otto pictures of aliens that she says are in the trunk of a Chevy Malibu. She claims that they are dangerous because of the radiation that they emit. Meanwhile, Helping Hand is offered a $20,000 bounty notice for the Malibu. Most assume that the car is drug-related, because the bounty is so far above the actual value of the car.

Parnell arrives in L.A., but he is unable to meet his waiting UFO compatriots because of a team of government agents led by a woman with a metal hand. When Otto pulls into a gas station, Helping Hand's competitors, the Rodriguez brothers, take the car. They stop for sodas because the car's trunk is so hot. While they are out of the car, a trio of Otto's punk friends, who are on a crime spree, steal the Malibu.

After they visit a night club, Parnell appears and tricks the punks into opening the trunk, killing one of them and scaring the other two away. Later, he picks up Otto and drives aimlessly, before collapsing and dying from radiation exposure. Otto takes the car back to Helping Hand and leaves it in the lot. The car is stolen from the lot, and a chase ensues. By this time, the car is glowing bright green.

Eventually, the car reappears at the Helping Hand lot with Bud behind the wheel, but he ends up being shot. The various groups trying to acquire the car soon show up; government agents, the UFO scientists, and the televangelist. Anyone who approaches it bursts into flames, even those in flame-retardant suits. Only Miller, an eccentric mechanic at Helping Hand, is able to enter the car. He slides behind the wheel and beckons Otto into the Malibu. After he settles into the passenger seat, the Malibu lifts straight up into the air and flies away.

Maps Repo Man (film)

Cast

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Reception

Repo Man garnered widespread praise upon its release, and is widely considered to be one of the best films of 1984. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 98% approval rating based on 44 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Repo Man is many things: an alien-invasion film, a punk-rock musical, a send-up of consumerism. One thing it isn't is boring." In 2008, the film was voted by a group of Los Angeles Times writers and editors as the eighth-best film set in Los Angeles in the last 25 years. Entertainment Weekly ranked the film seventh on their list of "The Top 50 Cult Films".

Roger Ebert wrote:

I saw "Repo Man" near the end of a busy stretch on the movie beat: Three days during which I saw more relentlessly bad movies than during any comparable period in memory. Most of those bad movies were so cynically constructed out of formula ideas and "commercial" ingredients that watching them was an ordeal. "Repo Man" comes out of left field, has no big stars, didn't cost much, takes chances, dares to be unconventional, is funny, and works. There is a lesson here.

Awards

Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films

• Won - Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor - Tracey Walter
• Nominated - Saturn Award for Best Writing - Alex Cox

Boston Society of Film Critics Awards

• Won - Best Screenplay

Mystfest

• Nominated - Best Film

American Film Institute Lists

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs - Nominated
• AFI's 10 Top 10 - Nominated Science Fiction Film

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Soundtrack

The soundtrack features songs by various punk rock bands such as The Plugz, Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, Suicidal Tendencies, Iggy Pop and others. The film score was created by Tito Larriva and Steven Hufsteter of The Plugz.

1. Iggy Pop - "Repo Man" - 5:12
2. Black Flag - "TV Party" - 3:50
3. Suicidal Tendencies - "Institutionalized" - 3:49
4. Circle Jerks - "Coup d'État" - 1:59
5. The Plugz - "El Clavo y la Cruz" - 2:56
6. Burning Sensations - "Pablo Picasso" - 4:01
7. Fear - "Let's Have a War" - 2:28
8. Circle Jerks - "When the Shit Hits the Fan" - 3:11
9. The Plugz - "Hombre Secreto (Secret Agent Man)" - 1:46
10. Juicy Bananas - "Bad Man" - 4:59
11. The Plugz - "Reel Ten" - 3:09

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Sequels

Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday

According to the documentary A Texas Tale of Treason, Cox wrote a sequel to Repo Man which, though filming started, was never finished.

Chris Bones saw the script on Cox's website and asked, and received, permission to adapt the script into a graphic novel. The book, Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday, was released in March 2008 by Gestalt Publishing.

Repo Chick

On December 3, 2008, a sequel was reported to be going into development with the working title Repo Chick. The story would be set in 2008 and the resulting boom in repossession that extends far beyond cars and homes. On February 13, 2009, Cox announced on his blog that shooting had finished and the film was in post-production. The bulk of the film was shot in front of a green screen, with backgrounds filmed and composited-in during post-production. Universal sent Cox a cease-and-desist notice because he does not possess the rights to do an official sequel, but he ignored it since his film uses none of the characters from the original. The film premiered on September 8 at the Venice Film Festival. It was released to DVD in the United Kingdom on February 7, 2011, and in North America on the following day.

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References

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External links

• Repo Man on IMDb
• Repo Man at Box Office Mojo
• Repo Man at Rotten Tomatoes
• Repo Man at Metacritic
• Repo Man page on Alex Cox website

Source of article : Wikipedia