Amazon.com essential video: A volatile, toxic potion of satire and nihilism, road movie and science fiction, violence and comedy, the unclassifiable sensibility of Alex Cox's Repo Man is the model and inspiration for a potent strain of post-punk American comedy that includes not only Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction), but also early Coen brothers (Raising Arizona, in particular), Men in Black, and even (in a weird way) The X-Files. Otto, a baby-face punk played by Emilio Estevez, becomes an apprentice to Bud (Harry Dean Stanton), a coke-snorting, veteran repo-man-of-honor prowling the streets of a Los Angeles wasteland populated by hoods, wackos, burnouts, conspiracy theorists, and aliens of every stripe. It may seem chaotic at first glance, but there's a "latticework of coincidence" (as Tracey Walter puts it) underlying everything. Repo Man is a key American movie of the 1980s--just as Taxi Driver, Nashville, and Chinatown are key American movies of the '70s. With a scorching soundtrack that features Iggy Pop, Fear, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, and Suicidal Tendencies. --Jim Emerson
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Boring, gave me a major headache
This has got to be one of the dumbest, most deliriously boring flicks ever made. Heck, watching it gave me a massive headache. I'm known for liking really cheesy movies, but this one is just plain stinky.
Rating: - Repo Man: Alex Cox's Quest For The Holy Grail.
Directed by, Alex Cox (Walker; Straight to Hell; Death and the Compass; Three Businessmen)), Repo Man is a 1980s cult classic starring Emilio Estevez and Harry Dean Stanton. Set in mid-80s Los Angeles, the darkly humorous, offbeat film tells the story of Otto Maddox (Estevez), a loser and recently-unemployed supermarket clerk who unexpectedly finds employment with "repo man" Bud (Stanton), after discovering that his girlfriend is having sex with his best friend and his parents have donated his college savings to a televangelist. Much of the surreal film involves a crazy road-trip quest through ... Read More
Rating: - Classic
I loved this movie when it first came out, back in my own post-punk college days. I recently watched it again, after not having seen it for many years, and I'm pleased that it has actually aged quite well. It's still really, really funny. The soundtrack is still excellent. The social commentary still works. The performances are still hysterical. The special effects are still bad. Seriously, it's a classic.
Rating: - The One That Got Away
I titled this review, "The One That Got Away" because this movie as it is now being presented is not the exact same movie I fashioned my temporarilly pointless life after in the 80's. I remember a scene (which is now missing) where Otto was in the market holding a can which read "MEAT". He asked a store clerk (female), "what kind of meat is this?" and she replies, "what difference does it make?", classic! But gone.
In the special features section they have a bunch of deleted scenes...why were they deleted in the first place? Reviewing these deleted scenes out of context only peeved me ... Read More
Rating: - A movie destined to be a Cult icon: The dark side of Pop culture.
Whitout a trace of a doubt, this movie is the very synonym of what a cult film is meant to be, in every single possible aspect that can be analysed on the mad lab of filmic culture, a larger than life experience about the most true and substancial feelings, atmospheres and aesthetics, fibers and existential layers required for a cinematic work to be considered a cult icon. "Repo Man" is the flag, the standard of the underground, B-style, drive-in cult films of all times. If there's an encyclopedia of cult films, this stunning on-the-edge work of art, spawned from the rotten entrails of the mid 80's ... Read More
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