The Essential ’80s Punk Comedy Everyone Needs To See
Sometimes, you see a film that really resonates with you and stays stuck in your mind many years later. Often times, such a film becomes a cult classic that audiences love to watch over and over again. Repo Man is such a film and has firmly cemented its place as a cult classic and possibly the most realistic look at the punk rocker scene of the mid-1980s and the life of those who repossess cars when their owners stop making their loan payments.
Otto Maddox
The 1984 film stars Emilio Estevez as the Los Angeles punk rocker Otto Maddox who gets a job working for repo man Bud, who is played by the always terrific Harry Dean Stanton. Otto was fired from his last job, so he really needs the repo gig to work out to make ends meet. His only other real option is to join one of his punk rocker friends in a life of violent crime.
The Repo Gig
Otto meets Bud in a purely random manner by walking down a neighborhood street when Bud drives up and offers him a fast $25 for just driving what he says is his wife’s car to another location.
Otto helps Bud but learns it’s a repossession and not a car that belongs to Bud’s wife. Still, it’s a gig that kind of flies in the face of societal norms, and Otto likes it.
Night Work
Bud shows Otto the very unique ways in which he repossesses vehicles from those who don’t want to give them up. Tossing a rat into an open convertible driven by a buxom woman is one of many ways in which Bud makes the repossession work end in his favor.
The more cars Otto repossesses, the more money he makes as a repo man while working mostly late at night when cars and the people driving them are easier to find.
The Chevy Malibu
There’s one car in particular that every repo man and woman in Los Angeles seeks to recover due to the $20,000 bounty placed on it – a 1964 Chevy Malibu with and oddly glowing trunk. We first see the Malibu in the opening scene as a police officer pulls it over in the Mojave Desert, opens the glowing trunk, and is vaporized with only his boots left steaming on the ground.
Bud and Otto are just two of the many repo men – and some governmental agents – looking to repossess the elusive Malibu that might be connected to extraterrestrials.
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Director Alex Cox made the film on a shoestring budget and based it partly on his own real-life experience working for a repossession agent in Los Angeles. Cox and some of his film school buddies from UCLA shot the film in 1983 and enabled the cast to ad lib much of their scenes.
The result is pure cinematic magic that is far removed from the hit movie The Breakfast Club that became one of Estevez’s most memorable works.
Repo Man is a cult classic that barely saw any time on the big screen and only generated $129,000 in box office receipts in 1984. Yet, it earned high praise among critics and audiences alike, including an impressive 98 percent approval score among critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
Audiences give it a solid 78 percent approval rating, but it deserves a lot more for its unique plot, terrific cast, and especially Stanton’s outstanding acting. You can stream it on as a video-on-demand rental or buy it on Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video.
