Repo Man (3 Stars - 4 Stars)

      Is it possible for an intentionally ludicrous movie to actually turn too ludicrous? That was the case for this 1984 movie, "Repo Man." It's a story that seems to start like a coming of age story with Otto as the learner and being indicted into a job that so many people resent. They're like the IRS, except they don't knock on your door. They have the legal right to break into your car, with any means possible, and drive away with it.

The repo men can repossess
cars through any means necessary.

            The beginning was a contrived mess from the beginning of the first act, to the second half of the first act. It starts with a police officer vaporized from opening a trunk of a car. It then cuts to Otto, a typical down on luck grocery worker who loses his job and stumbles upon Bud, played by Harry Dean Stanton, or the second victim from Alien. It seems strange that this guy is doing a different alien picture, but we’ll get to that later on. We first see him as a trusting, yet dishonest man as Bud persuades Otto into driving away with a repossessed car.

The movie stars the 2nd victim in Alien.

            As we meet Otto’s character and his job as a repo man, the comedy starts to ramp up to irrelevance that becomes surreal and nonsensical. There was a scene where Otto tries to woo the girl of his life and simply drops his pants just to get straight to the point. There is another scene where Otto and Bud get into a Mexican standoff with some punks who seem to do nothing but rob the same liquor store over and over. There is a conversation between Otto and an ex-hippie named Miller where they talk about plate of shrimps and how it links with the cosmic unconscious. One of my favorite types of comedies is surreal comedy, because basically, you don’t know what’s coming. This is why people flock to these cult movies. This is why people prefer movies like The Big Lebowski, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, or Rocky Horror

Picture Show.

Surreal Comedies, such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail,
Duck Soup, The Rocky Horror Picture Show,
and The Big Lebowski are a sure fire way of gaining an audience.

            The biggest pay off, or laughs from the movie were the generic names for the products used in the film. There was food that was labeled food, drinks labeled as drink, and beer labeled as beer. There is a big pay off in this movie from using alternative redundancy. In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the production set only had one horse, and so the idea of the coconuts and the prancing ended up being one of the best aspects of the film. It's these small production inconveniences that makes the movie so interesting where the producers come up with a ridiculous Plan B and rework it in the story.

The biggest pay off would have to be
 the generic labeling of  food, drinks, ETC.

            The movie strives off of irrelevant funny scenes, scenes that don’t lead to anything or advance the story. The energy does seem to run off and seems to drag on for too long and the movie does seem to get boring at times as a consequence for annexing itself from a normal story and go full on ludicrous. I actually laughed in this story, but the tone was inconsistent when it digresses to ridiculous sub-plots. At first, we see a large collection of sub-plots that really don't seem to connect, and as we move to the bigger picture, it still felt confusing to me.

Like a Jason Reitman movie, the
main character is an unlikable guy in real life

            The movie dwells into the job of repo men and how it can be all fun on the other side. This reminds me of Jason Reitman’s movies, where he takes a hated person or job and turns them into lovable characters. In this movie, there is some fun in taking other people’s cars. Bud establishes all of these rules that don’t mean anything to the other repo men. It seems that repo men take speed in order to stay awake. Yeah, it’s a disgusting job that makes you less of a human being, but Otto is living in bad times and he needs the money regardless of his morality in all of this, if he does have any morality at all. Then again, taking someone else's car seems fun in certain situations, as long as the car owner doesn't bring a gun out.

            Among the sub-plots, there are the cliché punks who have nothing better to do but to be punks. There are the Mexicans who seem to pester the repo men. There is a wild offbeat sub-plot of aliens in a trunk of a Malibu that vaporize anyone who opens the trunk. The Malibu itself turns into some sort of a macguffin. Because the car is worth $20,000, the repo men need to get it as well as the rival Hispanic repo men. The alien trackers, as well as Otto’s lackluster girlfriend want the aliens inside the trunk. The punks needed a car to steal and the guy driving the car seems too attached to the car.

What's in the mysterious trunk? Everybody wants a piece of it.

            The movie’s ideology also dwells into the punk generation. After that liquor store standoff, there is the one punk who tries to make the excuse, “Society made me who I am today.” Again, the same punks rob the same liquor store over and over again, seemingly never learning their lesson. It’s a mirror of the eighties and how it seems to be flooded with the problems of punks running wild in the streets.

            It’s a ludicrous movie about ludicrous characters in ludicrous situations. Although this movie is ingrained into the cult status of underground groups, this movie never really stuck on to me like other cult movies. Repo Man alone is an interesting comedy that's anarchic and defies comedic norms.