We recommend Alex Cox’s rude, funny science-fiction comedy for its performances and its sour eye for everyday commerce. The conspiracy plot is less satisfying than the people caught up in it.
Alex Cox’s Repo Man makes a good case for giving a science-fiction comedy some ordinary, unpleasant work to do. Car repossession provides the work, Los Angeles punk supplies the attitude, and alien conspiracy theories give everyone further reason to distrust everybody else. We recommend it warmly: it is funny, alert to petty absurdity and carried by two performances that never ask us to applaud their eccentricity. Its weakness is a wandering plot, which occasionally mistakes another odd encounter for progress.
Harry Dean Stanton’s Bud is the strongest reason to watch, a cynical man played with complete seriousness. He makes car repossession seem worthy of the same solemn respect as medicine. Cox’s writing gives him enough conviction that the cynicism never feels pasted on for our amusement. Stanton is funny because Bud seems so settled in his view of other people, and so disinclined to reconsider it.
Emilio Estevez is just as important as Otto Maddox, the young repo man whose underplayed presence steadies the film. A broader performance could make the punk attitude exhausting, particularly when the science-fiction elements begin competing for attention. Estevez gives us somebody worth following without softening the film into a plea to like him. Cox gets the balance between them right, leaving enough space for Estevez’s quieter approach to register alongside Stanton’s cynicism.
Robby Müller’s crisp cinematography keeps the images readable while the story runs off in several directions. Lynda Burbank’s production design gets a particularly good joke out of the generic food labels. We laughed at those labels; they make buying food look like something nobody can be bothered to pretend is enjoyable. It is a sour joke about shopping, made with ordinary packaging.
Dennis Dolan’s editing gives the changes of direction a useful speed and preserves the dry timing of the performances. Tito Larriva and Steven Hufsteter’s music contributes to the film’s restlessness; the abrasive punk soundtrack is a substantial part of its appeal. Together, they help the film move quickly between repossession comedy and the stranger business surrounding it. At 92 minutes, it also knows roughly how long this kind of unruliness can remain entertaining.
The limitation is that the conspiracy business is not as interesting as the people earning a living around it. Cox can keep adding peculiarities, but curiosity about what happens next sometimes gives way to waiting for Stanton or Estevez to get another exchange. This is a modest complaint in a film with so much comic personality, though it matters whenever the science fiction takes priority. The everyday transactions have a bite that the more extravagant material does not always match.
Science-fiction comedy can become a chore when everyone stops to explain the rules. Repo Man trusts us to keep up, which suits its abrasive humour. A few untidy stretches are a fair price for that freedom. Choose it for an evening when good manners would only be an irritation.
