By Ryan Thomas
Even without the Iggy Pop theme song, Repo Man would still be one of the more punk-rock movies ever made. The feature debut of British maverick Alex Cox, screening Aug. 2-8 at The Independent Picture House as part of our Summer of ’84 series, is on the short list of films projected straight from the subconscious of the Reagan-era underbelly — think John Carpenter’s They Live and Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger than Paradise — recontextualizing pulpy 1950s sci-fi to make one of the most genuinely eccentric films ever released by a major studio. Cultural mutiny has rarely felt so fun.
Repo Man follows Otto (Emilio Estevez), a rudderless teenager who falls in with a car repossession agency led by the streetwise Bud (Harry Dean Stanton). Bud and his crew, Oly, Lite and Miller — they’re all named after cheap beers — teach Otto the ways of legalized carjacking in a derelict Los Angeles, eventually crossing paths with punk rock delinquents, burnt-out ex-hippies, televangelists, wannabe Scientologists, a girl named Leila, the rival Rodriguez brothers, governments agents with robotic hands, a lobotomized nuclear scientist with one sunglass lens missing and a radioactive Chevy Malibu.
The film was a legitimate cult classic, originally dumped by Universal in March 1984 and pulled after a week of screenings. Six months later, when Repo Man’s soundtrack — with contributions from L.A. punk mainstays like Black Flag, Suicidal Tendencies and Circle Jerks — had inexplicably sold more than 50,000 copies, Universal put the film back in theaters. Only then did it find critical acclaim and box-office success, becoming an object of B-movie fascination and, later, a home video gem.
Repo Man is trenchant, radical and subversive, but mostly it’s just funny. Characters drink generic white cans of “Beer” and eat from containers labeled “Food” or “Snacks.” The film’s edited-for-TV version replaces profanity with “flip you” and “melon farmer.” And basically any line that comes out of Stanton’s mouth — “Only an a**hole gets killed for a car,” “F***in’ millionaires, they never pay their bills,” “Ordinary f***in’ people, I hate ’em” — could conceivably be tattooed somewhere, on someone’s body, not far from a piercing or mohawk or shaved head.
The irony is that Repo Man seems to loathe the idea of a cinematic “legacy.” The film actively resists critical appraisal, popular appeal and easy understanding. The effects are cheesy, entire scenes are clearly dubbed, and the plot makes no sense. But it’s still as influential as it is beloved, trickling into everything from early Quentin Tarantino to Drive-Away Dolls to (reportedly) Paul Thomas Anderson’s forthcoming opus. Repo Man moved the needle by ignoring it completely.
If there’s a lesson there, it’s probably that, filmmakers or not, we could all stand to be a little weirder, a little more autonomous, a little less concerned with how we come across. A little more Otto and a little less Kevin. But Repo Man isn’t about lessons — so, as Otto himself would say, “F*** that.” Here’s a better idea: Let’s go get sushi and not pay.