Repo Man (1984 ) Punk Sci-Fi, L.A. Smog Noir

"I shall not cause harm to any vehicle nor the personal contents thereof, nor through inaction let the personal contents thereof come to harm" (The Repo Man Code)

Written and Directed by Alex Cox, (Walker (1987), Sid and Nancy (1986)). Cinematography by Robby Müller (The American Friend aka Der amerikanische Freund (1977), Paris, Texas (1984), Barfly (1987), and Dead Man (1995)).

Music by Steven Hufsteter, Tito Larriva, Charlie Quintana, and Tony Marsico. The punk rock soundtrack features notably The Plugz, Black Flag, The Circle Jerks, Suicidal Tendencies, and Iggy Pop. 

Harry Dean Stanton as Bud

Emilio Estevez as Otto Maddox

Starring Harry Dean Stanton (who was in Hitchcock Classic Noir The Wrong Man (1956), then plenty of TV work in the 1960's. then Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), Dillinger (1973), Cockfighter (1974), Farewell, My Lovely (1975), Paris, Texas (1976), Slam Dance (1987), Wild at Heart (1990), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) as Bud. 

Emilio Estevez as Otto Maddox, Tracey Walter (Hardcore (1979), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), and Delusion (1991) as Miller. 

Tracey Walter as Miller. 

Vonetta McGee as Marlene

Sy Richardson as Lite

Olivia Barash as Leila

Olivia Barash as Leila, Sy Richardson as Lite, Vonetta McGee (The Great Silence (1968)) as Marlene, Richard Foronjy as Otto Plettschner (Serpico (1973), Susan Barnes as Agent Rogersz, Fox Harris (Hammett (1982)) as J. Frank Parnell, Tom Finnegan as Oly, Del Zamora as Lagarto Rodriguez, Eddie Velez as Napoleon "Napo" Rodriguez, Zander Schloss as Kevin,Jennifer Balgobin as Debbi, Dick Rude as Duke, Miguel Sandoval as Archie, Helen Martin as Mrs. Parks, The Circle Jerks as Nightclub Band. 

Story

J. Frank Parnell. Ex scientist. On the run. Skying. Radiation high. Drifting a 1964 Chevy Malibu all over the road and map from a secret lab near Los Alamos towards the City of Angels. 

Route 66 / I-40 with occasional ersatz detours.  He's running from the Big Heat. A now rogue employee of a top secret government agency. He stole trunk full of what looks like alien cocoons. He's going to expose their existence to the media. He makes it to the East edge of the Mojave Desert where the highway dips a bit South at Kingman.

Just past Needles on another evasive tail shaking detour, County 66 - Goffs Rd, he gets pulled over by a California motorcycle cop because he's weaving from shoulder to centerline sending up plumes of dust every time he leaves the pave. 

J. Frank is like a human bobblehead doll with a slow motion wobble. He's looks like a cross between the ultimate nerd, and a skid row stew bum. 

Two day stubble, greasy hair, sweaty, slept in wrinkled clothes, and topping all that, wearing sunglasses that are missing one of the lenzes, completing his zoned out aura. J. Frank is singing to himself as the patrolman approaches. 

The cop has to bang on the window to get his attention. Seeing nothing suspicious surrounding J. Frank, the cop asks...

Motorcycle Cop: Whatcha got in the trunk?

J. Frank Parnell: Oh... You don't wanna look in there.

Of course the cop asks for the trunk key and opens the trunk. In a blinding flash of light the skin  vaporizes off his skeleton and then turns his bones to dust. Gone! Only the cops smoking leather boots indicate where he was standing. J. Frank drives off.

Los Angeles. Pik n Pay Grocery. Punker Otto Maddox and his best friend Kevin are stacking cans at an aisle end cap. The store manager Mr. Humphries approaches with security man and fires Otto for being late on the job. Otto pushes Kevin into the pile of cans knocking both to the floor. Kevin laughs and the manger fires him also.

Fired

Otto goes to join his buddies who are slam dancing in a parking lot. He picks up a chick and the party all moves to Kevin's parents house. He's got her on the bed in Kevin's parents bedroom and is about to ball her when she stops him and asks him to get her a beer. 

Slamdance

He goes off to get her one but when he returns he finds her balling another punker. 

Otto grabs his clothes and a six pack of generic beer and ends up roaming in the rail yards long the Los Angeles River. 

At first light he's mumbling to himself, sitting South of the 7th Street Viaduct. He walks East through a landscape of junkyards.

Just past East 10th and Crocker he gets propositioned by Bud who is driving a 1971 Chevrolet Impala. Bud tells him he needs somebody to drive his wife's 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon out of this bad neighborhood.

He explains she had to go to the hospital nd he doesn't want to leave her car on the street. They dicker finally settling on $25. Otto jumps into the Cutlass and starts the car, about then, a middle aged Mexican runs out of  nearby house and tries to grab the wheel. Otto puts the pedal to the metal and speeds away.

Otto follows Bud to Oly's repo lot where he finds out that Bud was bullshitting him. He is now "technically" a repo man for Oly the owner, who is contracted by the Helping Hands Acceptance Corporation. Otto collets his $25 for the Cutlass, but tells Oly and Bud he doesn't want to be no repo man. 

I don't want to be no repo man

Otto goes back to his parents house in Edge City where, trying to change his life, he asks if he could he the $1,000 they promised him if he graduated high school in advance. 

They are glued to a TV watching  a televangelist. Both are zoned out ex hippies who as Cheech and Chong put it "used to be fucked up on drugs but now are fucked up on the Lord"

Fucked up on the Lord

Both are zoned out ex hippies who as Cheech and Chong put it "used to be fucked up on drugs but now are fucked up on the Lord"

Otto's father tells him tough luck they gave that money to buy bibles for a Reverend Larry bible project. The very next day Otto is back at Helping Hands repo taking the job. Otto learns the ins and outs of repo work from Bud and Lite. 

Blow

Competition from Rodriguez Brothers 

Lite's Car Theft Kit

Bud's & Lite's words of Repo Wisdom

Bud: Look at those assholes, ordinary fucking people. I hate 'em. 

He goes on to tell Otto that ordinary people spend their lives avoiding tense situations, while repo men spend their lives getting into tense situations.

Bud: The life of a repo man is always intense.

Bud: Tense situations, kid. You get into five or six of 'em a day, it don't mean shit anymore. I mean, I've seen men stabbed, didn't mean shit to me. I've seen guns, guns too, they don't mean shit. But that's when you gotta watch yourself.

Lite: I walk into someone's place of work, they shit scared. They know I'm not a cop, think I've come to kill 'em. And I would. I'll kill anybody who crosses me. Know what I mean?

It's exciting work legally stealing cars that you can break down into simple routine, Repo, blow, and dough, repeat. 

It all goes Noirsville when Bud meets Leila and he gives her a ride to the United Fruitcake Outlet. While driving, Leila shows Otto pictures of aliens that she says are in the trunk of a '64 Chevy Malibu.

She tells him that they're highly radioactive. Her plan is to find J. Frank Parnell and put him on the Tonight Show. 

Uncoincidentally back at the Repo lot, Helping Hand is offered a $20,000 bounty notice (by the secret New Mexico lab) for the same Malibu with New Mexico plates.

Noirsville 

The Circle Jerks

For having a low budget (the film was financed by the pine tree air freshener company which explains why all the vehicles (including a motorcycle have them, lol), Alex Cox and Robby Müller managed to create a bit of Neo Noir magic. Bravo.

Repo Man's full of memorable sequences and lines. Watch for guru-space cadet Miller's spiritual pronouncements. I see some homage to Classic Noir Kiss Me Deadly and Road Block. I also have read that Cox referenced , Naked Lunch, Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann (1982), and that Edge City is a recurring theme in Tom Wolfe's "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." 8/10