“Staff Picks” is a deeper look into movies that we love here at Video CULTure. Each edition of this column will focus on a single film that we think you should check out, either for the first time or for a long-overdue revisit.
By Patrick Bartlett (Twitter: @alleywaykrew)
I knew “Repo Man” by reputation long before I really even knew that much about it. For as long as I can remember as a young punk, this film but and its soundtrack were spoken of with great reverence. It bears mentioning that the soundtrack in question was for a Universal movie in the ’80s that featured Black Flag, Iggy Pop, Circle Jerks, etc. I don’t even know if those who aren’t into punk can appreciate how radical that was and still is. However, “Repo Man” in any form wasn’t something that I really had access to for the longest time. Luckily, I randomly found a DVD for cheap in a department store one day and it was like finding lost treasure. Even before I got the chance to watch it, I was excited to have it. When I did finally get to check it out, it was just the first time of God knows how many. “Repo Man” is something that I watched over and over again and it always stuck with me. Not to the extent that I quoted it daily or anything. It was way more personal than that. “Repo Man” is something that I held so close that it was years before I found out that I wasn’t the only one who saw how wonderful it is.
Most people likely don’t think about how badly punks are generally portrayed on film. Some of the best people I’ve ever known were punks and hardcore kids but when you put on a movie like “Bad Santa” or something, the punks are just douchebags and bullies. That wasn’t my experience and I know I’m not unique in that respect. That’s why certain movies that feature punks as the stars have survived over the years even when there are more and more options out there. Granted, “Repo Man” would probably still be as quirky and weird and fantastic even if the main character had risen out of different humble beginnings. Having said that, Emilio Estevez has had many iconic roles over the course of my life but I immediately see him as Otto when I hear his name. It’s iconic to me on a level that I can’t even express. I remember hearing that he was supposed to be Bender in “The Breakfast Club” but ultimately ended up with the role of the jock when Hughes couldn’t find anyone to play that part. At the time, I couldn’t imagine Estevez playing anyone but Andrew Clark, let alone someone so rough around the edges as John Bender. After seeing him in “Repo Man”, I’ve been constantly bummed we never got to see what essentially would have been an encore performance as Bender (even though Judd Nelson obviously ended up owning it and becoming iconic in his own unique way).
The plot of “Repo Man” is both really important and almost inconsequential simultaneously. Basically, Estevez’s character of Otto is a young punk unable to truly fit in. He’s not really welcome in a normal work setting like a grocery store any more than he is among the punks in his friend group. After his girlfriend ditches him for his best friend at a party one night, he ends up meeting Harry Dean Stanton’s character of Bud the next morning and is convinced by Bud to help him take a car out of a “bad area”. He eventually learns that Bud is a repo man, repossessing cars for commission. When invited to become one himself, he flatly refuses but is welcomed in regardless. It turns out that he fits in among this group of misfits better than expected and does become one of them. The crux of everything in the plot is what is THE car in the city at that moment. That is to say that all the repo men are in the process of hunting down this one particular car with a huge bounty on it. Unbeknownst to them, the abnormally high bounty is due to the fact that there may or may not be extraterrestrial beings in the trunk, which means that the repo men aren’t the only ones on the hunt.
Sure, those are massive stakes… but if we’re being honest, the entire main plot and the hunt for that car is literally just a device driving the story forward. The movie’s truly about finding family where you can and ultimately finding your place in the world. It’s just not in a typical heartwarming family film way you’d typically get from a story like this. You instead get a vaguely sci-fi action comedy, which I doubt I have to tell you is exponentially more interesting. A big reason it works is because of how great Estevez in his role, how great Stanton is in his, and on down the line. It’s a cast of faces mostly unrecognizable to people that aren’t movie geeks but are all so good that if it wasn’t for the more familiar faces in their midst, you’d be inclined to believe these were all people living and working in Los Angeles in the 1980s. That’s part of what makes this movie so special. As off-kilter as “Repo Man” ends up being overall and as much as a lot of it is stuff that could only exist on film, it does feel real on some level. Yeah, it’s ludicrous and fantastical… but as someone whose only real experience with Los Angeles is through film and television, I totally buy it.
British director Alex Cox is probably most famous for directing “Sid & Nancy” after this film but whenever his work comes up, I instantly see the world he created here. It’s just so beautiful. His color work is outstanding. The fact that everything feels gritty and real while every shot is clearly so wonderfully composed and photographed. All the tiny little flourishes he adds in the backgrounds and in the margins that most people probably wouldn’t even notice. It’s a truly interesting film from a major studio when most major studios didn’t seem that interested in the very idea of something of that nature. What Cox accomplished in “Repo Man” paved the way for directors in his wake to make weirder, more imaginative stuff. I don’t know that someone like Tim Burton would have been able to do what he did in the following years if it hadn’t been for Cox bringing such an eccentric vision to a major studio film. Yes, this studio didn’t get it at all and by all accounts tried to bury and forget about it…but “Repo Man” made such an impression that was impossible. On the one hand, it’s a little sad and disheartening that Cox was so clearly ahead of his time and that he was so unappreciated for what he was doing but there are definitely worse career trajectories than making iconic cult films and creating inroads for other fresh voices to breakthrough.
The thing that finally made me realize that “Repo Man” was more than just this little punk rock movie that I always held in high regard was when it was released by the Criterion Collection. That stamp of approval and all the other people who seemed equally excited about its release are what caused how pervasive of a film this is to finally dawn on me. I still feel like it’s something that deserves to have a bigger cultural footprint than it does but I also realize that most people who would be receptive to its myriad quirks and charms seem to find it on their own. It’s like any great piece of punk art in that way.
To find out where this film is available to stream, click here: Just Watch