The More You Drive, the Less Intelligent You are

 REPO MAN (1984)
Reassessed by Jerry Saravia

"Repo Man" is a junkyard fight of a movie, a rambling cuckoo clock of low and high extremes. It is somehow the story of repo men, you know, those in the dangerous business of repossessing cars from owners who don't make their payments. We learn rich people never make their payments because they don't care. We learn regular, normal people are assholes. We learn repo men dress in business suits so they can look like private detectives. And there is some business about a stolen 1964 Chevy Malibu that has something "hot" in its trunk. Not "hot" as in a stolen car, just literally hot. So hot that no one dares open the trunk or else, well, it will be "Kiss Me Deadly" time. 

Emilio Estevez is Otto, a hotheaded 19-year-old kid trying to pass for 21 who wears a crucifix earring (in 1984, this was a big deal but, nowadays, many males wears earrings). He does not have a legitimate girlfriend, loses his supermarket job by cursing out the manager, and tries to get money from his pot-smoking hippie parents to no avail. One day, Otto walks around the streets of L.A. and ends up repossessing a car, unbeknownst to him, while helping out Bud (Harry Dean Stanton) who claims his wife has to go to the hospital. It is all a ruse and Otto reluctantly becomes a repo man. Bud teaches him the tricks of the trade, including how most repo men stay alert by taking speed. Bud teaches Otto that life of a repo man is intense and he doesn't like commies or Christians in his car.  

Meanwhile, that Chevy Malibu is stolen repeatedly, including by a punk gang that loves "to do some crimes" including eating sushi for free! Government agents are also interested in that Malibu that is fetching for twenty grand if found, and you can bet those repo men want to get their hands on it. A lot of this can get repetitious, and the inclusion of some wild crazy scientist who initially drives the Malibu can irritate after a while. When Estevez and Stanton are on screen, the movie's kinetic energy is back on and is often crudely entertaining. 

Alex Cox's freewheeling direction is everywhere and anywhere - there is a restlessness to the film that continually stops and gets revved up all over again like some sputtering car engine. I don't think there is any sense to be made from "Repo Man" and there are no concrete ideas or any focused themes - it is simply a cartoon movie, a cult comic come to life, with quotable lines delivered with an idiosyncratic tone. I have to say that I admire that - we sometimes needs movies that just exist in their own vacuum and invite us on unusual journeys. Other than Stanton's memorably raggy repo man Bud and the hilarious Sy Richardson as a fearless repo man who carries a gun with blanks, Estevez's Otto is the one I gravitate to - an animated character who doesn't care about anything except for Bud. Bud and Otto develop a mutual understanding without the philosophizing of a sullied mechanic (Tracey Walter) who believes in aliens and time-travel. When the film is over, there is nothing to take away from it other than you want to revisit the whole experience.