Repo Man (1984)

Young punk Otto becomes a repo man after helping to steal a car, and stumbles into a world of wackiness as a result.

Director:

Alex Cox

Writer:

Alex Cox

Stars:

Harry Dean Stanton, Emilio Estevez, Tracey Walter

2 wins & 3 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Harry Dean Stanton	...	Bud
Emilio Estevez	...	Otto
Tracey Walter	...	Miller
Olivia Barash	...	Leila
Sy Richardson	...	Lite
Susan Barnes	...	Agent Rogersz
Fox Harris	...	J. Frank Parnell
Tom Finnegan	...	Oly
Del Zamora	...	Lagarto
Eddie Velez	...	Napo
Zander Schloss	...	Kevin
Jennifer Balgobin	...	Debbi
Dick Rude	...	Duke
Miguel Sandoval	...	Archie (as Michael Sandoval)
Vonetta McGee	...	Marlene

Storyline

Frustrated punk rocker Otto quits his supermarket job after slugging a co-worker, and is later dumped by his girlfriend at a party. Wandering the streets in frustration, he is recruited in the repossession of a car by a repo agent. After discovering his parents have donated his college fund to a televangelist, he joins the repossession agency (Helping Hand Acceptance Corporation) as an apprentice "repo man". During his training, he is introduced into the mercenary and paranoid world of the drivers, befriended by a UFO conspiracy theorist, confronted by rival repo agents, discovers some of his one-time friends have turned to a life of crime, is lectured to near cosmic unconsciousness by the repo agency grounds worker, and finds himself entangled in a web of intrigue concerning a huge repossession bounty on a 1964 Chevy Malibu driven by a lunatic government scientist, with Top Secret cargo in the trunk.

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Plot Keywords:

car trunk | radioactivity | punk rocker | black comedy | los angeles california | 

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Taglines:

I do my best thinking on the bus

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Genres:

Comedy | Crime | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Certificate:

R

Details

Official Sites:

Alex Cox

Country:

USA

Language:

English Spanish

Release Date:

2 March 1984 (USA)

Also Known As:

El reclamador

Filming Locations:

Los Alamos, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$1,500,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$95,300, 4 March 1984, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$3,569,083

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$3,750,080

Company Credits

Production Co:

Edge City

Technical Specs

Runtime:

92 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

For the first couple days of filming, Harry Stanton refused to learn his lines. He said that Warren Oates read his dialogue in Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) off of note cards stuck to the dashboard so he should be able to do the same. Alex Cox overcame this obstacle by informing him that refusing to learn lines was in breach of the SAG contract (which may or may not be true). Stanton memorized everything perfectly after that.

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Goofs

In the first scene where the motorcycle cop pulls Parnell over, the sky changes back and forth from clear to cloudy in several different shots.

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Quotes

Bud: I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees.

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Crazy Credits

Credits scroll down instead of up

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Alternate Versions

There is a scene included in the television version where Bud destroys a telephone booth with a bat.

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Connections

Referenced in Gossip Girl: The Ex-Files (2008)

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Soundtracks

TV Party
Written by Greg Ginn
Performed by Black Flag
Courtesy of Unicorn Records

User Reviews

Best punk movie ever

Today most part of culture is based in consume: we are what we dress, what we drink, what we eat. The punk scene started more that twenty years ago because the young and bold realized this, unfurtunately, we still are what we consume. Repo-man is the best picture I´ve seen that resembles the punk sesibilities of "no future" and "anarchy" and its no wonder Alex Cox later directed Sid and Nancy. In this movie you can find that ugly stetic, nihilistic breath and the wasted youth of the young people who crashes to the capitalistic jaws of a system understood by few. This is one hell of a movie, and 18 years later after being being made, it ended being profetic. In fact,1999`s Figth Club seems to me like Repo Man updated, and the X-files and MIB are previewed here. Repo Man is a brave masterpiece on the "no future"