Repo Man

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the person who repossesses property, see Repossession. For the professional wrestler, see Barry Darsow. For the X-Men episode see Repo Man (X-Men episode).

Repo Man
Repo Man DVD Cover
Directed by	Alex Cox
Produced by	Peter McCarthy
Written by	Alex Cox
Starring	Emilio Estevez Harry Dean Stanton
Music by	Iggy Pop
Cinematography	Robby Müller
Editing by	Dennis Dolan
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	March 2, 1984
Running time	92 minutes
Language	English
Budget	$1.5 million USD
IMDb profile

Image:Repo cap2.jpg

Repo Man is a 1984 cult film directed by Alex Cox, produced by Michael Nesmith, and starring Emilio Estevez and Harry Dean Stanton.

1 Plot
- 1.1 Taglines
2 Featured cast
3 Reception
- 3.1 Awards and nominations
4 Moments To Watch
5 Recurring themes and references
6 Soundtrack
7 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Otto Maddox (Emilio Estevez), an alienated young punk rocker living in mid-1980s Los Angeles, is fired from his menial job as a supermarket stock clerk after talking back to his boss. Shortly afterwards, he finds out that his pot-smoking, ex-hippie parents have donated his entire savings account to a popular but sleazy televangelist. Leaving home, broke, Otto gets a job almost by accident with the disingenuously named "Helping Hand Acceptance Corporation," a small-time automobile repossession agency, where he is mentored by Bud (Harry Dean Stanton) a seasoned repo man who teaches the often hazardous profession.

Soon, Bud, Otto and competing repo men all over town are searching for a 1964 Chevrolet Malibu from New Mexico, ludicrously overvalued at $20,000; this vehicle, unknown to them, contains something mysterious and dangerously powerful in its trunk, also sought by a strange female FBI agent, Agent Rogersz (Susan Barnes) and her staff. The film draws on the experiences of Alex Cox, who worked briefly as a repo man in Los Angeles, but soon deviates into the surreal with aliens, the CIA, televangelism, punk rocker thieves and other strange characters and situations, all amid a long string of hilarious running gags and almost-impossible coincidences.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Taglines

...It's 4 A.M., do you know where your car is?
Meet Otto. He's a clean-cut kid in a dirty business. He's a Repo Man. He steals cars legally. Now, he's out to repossess a '64 Chevy Malibu...with an amazing reward of $20,000. But Otto is not alone. There are others who want the car and will do anything to get it. The risks are great, because hidden in the trunk is something so incredible it could destroy them all. We'll give you a hint... it glows in the dark.

[edit] Featured cast

Actor	Role
Jennifer Balgobin	Debbi
Olivia Barash	Leila
Susan Barnes	Agent Rogersz
Harry Dean Stanton	Bud
Emilio Estevez	Otto Maddox
Tom Finnegan	Oly
Richard Foronjy	Otto Plettschner
Fox Harris	J. Frank Parnell
Helen Martin	Mrs. Parks
Vonetta McGee	Marlene
Sy Richardson	Lite
Dick Rude	Duke, Punk
Miguel Sandoval	Archie
Zander Schloss	Kevin the Nerd
Eddie Velez	Napoleon 'Napo' Rodríguez
Tracey Walter	Miller
Del Zamora	Lagarto Rodrigues

[edit] Reception

[edit] Awards and nominations

1985 Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films (Saturn Awards)

Won - Best Supporting Actor (Film) — Tracey Walter
Nominated - Best Writing — Alex Cox

[edit] Moments To Watch

The opening credits are shown in geographic sequence. This is the apparent route of the car that is being pursued by the various parties involved. The map starts in Los Alamos, New Mexico (the location of an actual US Government research facility), travels westward into Arizona, and when the opening credits end, it shows the location as being outside of Needles, California.

The picture of "four alien bodies" is allegedly two condoms filled with water and decorated with a pair of tiny grass skirts, arranged to resemble a plate of shrimp^{[citation needed]}.

Miller (Tracey Walter), a scruffy, oddball mechanic working for Helping Hand, refuses to learn to drive, explaining that the "more you drive, the less intelligent you are."

In the edited-for-television version, the expletives have been dubbed by the original actors. "F--- you, you mother f---er" was changed to "Flip you, you melon farmer". Cox also incorporated scenes absent from the cinema version into the television one.

Otto's friend Kevin, (Zander Schloss), appears many times throughout the movie:
- In the opening scene when the scientist is pulled over, look closely when the cop looks back at the trunk. Kevin is actually in the drivers seat.
- In a scene near the start of the movie where Otto and Bud are returning to the repo yard, the Malibu swerves in front of them. Kevin is driving
- In the scene when the repo men go to beat up Mr. Humphries for firing Otto, look in the background right before he gets hit with the bat. Kevin is in the background.
- Near the end of the movie when Otto and the Rodriguez brothers go to bust Bud out of the hospital, one of them pulls back the cover on a hospital bed. Kevin is in the bed and just says, "Otto??" His glasses are smashed and he has been beat up (by the repo men in the previous scene).

In the scene where Otto repos a car from Bruce Ipezen at the laundromat, look in the background. Someone is dead on the floor.
In the scene where Otto asks his parents if he can have his college money now, they're smoking pot while watching a TV preacher.
Read through the ending credits... EVERYONE is credited by their character name. Some of the characters are so obscure, it's impossible to tell who they are.
Watch for the three way standoff and shootout in the mini mart. Quentin Tarantino adapted this scene for use in some of his movies^{.[citation needed]}
Listen closely during the scene where the agents are investigating the motorcycle cop who was fried by the aliens. You'll hear two things:
- The police dispatcher is STILL calling out over the radio asking what the cop is doing even though it's the next day. "Are you still out there? Quit messing around..."
- The deputy who is asking the agents what caused this mumbles something about how, "I think Canadian bacon is better myself."

When Otto repos the old Mexican guy's car, the scene shows him from an upstairs window. The car is is a 2-door from this view. Later when Otto drives away, the car is now a 4-door

When Otto and Bud race the Rodriguez Brothers in the river bed, there is one scene where the scientist, J. Frank Parnell, is actually driving the car.

[edit] Recurring themes and references

References to "plates", "shrimp", or "plate of shrimp" throughout.
In the hospital scene, a "Dr. Benway" and a "Mr. Lee" are paged. Both are characters from novels by William S. Burroughs.
"Dioretix", a pun on L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics and the term diuretic.
The dangerous glow emitted from the trunk of the Chevy Malibu may be a homage to the bright, glowing contents of the mysterious box in the 1955 film Kiss Me Deadly directed by Robert Aldrich. A similar device can be seen in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction.
Food and beverages throughout the movie appear in generic white containers with blue-lettered labels reading among others, "Beer", "Drink", "Dry Gin" and "Food (Meat Flavored)".
Pine-scented car deodorizers shaped like evergreen trees are placed in most cars. These items were one of the few sponsored items in this movie and hundreds of these deodorizers were donated to the filmmakers for this movie, without scent. Miller, the mechanic-philosopher, also noted the pervasive presence of the scented pine tree deodorizers in repossessed cars, telling Otto, "You'll find one in every car. You'll see." (One even appears on a policeman's motorcycle.)
Many of the "repo men" of Helping Hand are named after popular beers or allude to beer: Bud, Oly, Lite, Miller.
Quite a few Los Angeles-based punk rock musicians cast in roles large and small include: Dick Rude and Keith Morris (with his band, The Circle Jerks) as well as The Untouchables (as the scooter guys). Also cast is Los Angeles club maven, Rodney Bingenheimer (aka "Rodney on the ROQ") in a cameo appearance as a club owner. Bingenheimer's name is spelled "Benegenheimer" in the credits. The Circle Jerks perform as a very poor lounge act (the source of Otto's lament, "I can't believe I used to like these guys!") as they grind out a slow, "swinging" lounge version of the normally raucous When the Shit Hits the Fan. Circle Jerks bassist Zander Schloss is seen in an acting role as a friend of Otto's who works with him at the supermarket.
Posters for "Harry Pace for City Council" in the background throughout the film. (Alex Cox has said that "Harry Pace" was an indirect reference to "happy face." Leila (played by Olivia Barash) wears happy face pins. Otto is wearing a smiley face pin when he spots the Chevy Malibu.
The scene when Agent Rogersz and Leila torture Otto appears to be a reference to the Milgram experiment.
As Bud and Otto pursue repossession opportunities throughout the seedier parts of Los Angeles (at all hours of the day and night), their path seems to continually follow or intersect with that of Otto's punk friends. On more than one occasion, Bud and Otto will visit a convenience store just after (or during) a robbery committed by Duke, Archie and Debbi.

Image:Repo cap1.jpg

[edit] Soundtrack

Professional reviews
Repo Man (Original Soundtrack)
Image:RepoManSoundtrack.jpg
Soundtrack by Various Artists
Released	1984
Genre	Soundtrack
Length	37:20
Label	MCA
All Music Guide (4.5/5) link

The soundtrack features now-classic punk rock tracks by Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, Suicidal Tendencies, Iggy Pop and others. Producer Mike Nesmith has a small cameo role (a mock TV commercial taken from his video production Elephant Parts).

It was meant to capture an angry spirit and features a collection of punk bands of the time.