Word: repos
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Sound a little psychotic? That's the whole point of Repo Man, a movie which unabashedly aims to wallow in its own neurotic. Road Warrior or Decline--Repo Man, the first film by Mike Nesmith (yes, the guy from the Monkees), can't seem to decide which it wants to be, and so it is a mishmash of the two, which is not necessarily a bad thing, though it doesn't work here. Slap-dash road violence in the post-nuclear age (or pre-, as the case may be) and the pathetic tribulations of alienated punks--the two mix seamlessly...
...film is somewhat interesting, especially in its manic depiction of life on the edge, of people about to go off the deep end, except the inside joke is obscured to the point of non-recognition. It's fun to watch punks, secret agents, and "repo" men--those guys who repossess cars from people behind on their payments--chase each other around; problem is, there's supposed to be a point to it all, and the viewer just doesn...
...vacuous feeling that Repo Man ultimately engenders could perhaps have been averted. A plot exists here somewhere, mostly in the madcap race between government agents, two groups of thugs of all stripes, and the heroic repo men for the '64 Chevy commandeered by J. Frank Parnell. There is something slightly extraterrestrial about this car, and it interests the government radiation squad, beaded by metal-handed Agent Rogersz. The thieves, the no-good Rodreiguez brothers and a three-man gang of punk liquor store robbers, also want the car- for the money, apparently, as do the repo men, who are interested...
...craziness only starts there. Out of work and out of luck, Otto--who is played by Emilio Estevez, a dead ringer for his father. Martin Sheen--joins up with the repo men, getting a harsh initiation into the world of jimmying locks, seizing parked cars, and avoiding gunfire from disgruntled debtors. He thought he was tough, but here he meets some people who are really out on the fritz. Here's Bud (played by Harry Dean Stanton), a frazzled repovet who first brings Otto into the business--getting him to help him with a difficult heist--and then befriends...
...lived--that events are beyond our control? Clearly, this movie's makers wanted to let us in on some Inner Message, but the connection between the weirdness on screen and this message is never made clear. The opaqueness of Nesmith's vision in the end makes Repo Man--well...dell, with only a very cool hardcore soundtrack to sustain it. Mad Max--where are you when we need...