Repo Man (1984)

In director/scriptwriter Alex Cox's off-beat, debut cult film with a punk/New Wave sensibility suitable for the mid 1980s - it was a hybrid sci-fi black comedy crime film similar in plot to Kiss Me Deadly (1955) (and its nuclear Pandora's box), in its tale about car repossession in Los Angeles and possible extra-terrestrials.

The low-budget, independent film Repo Man was executive-produced by The Monkees' rock band performer Michael Nesmith - it was his first credited role as the executive producer of a feature film. Many of the characters were named after popular, low-priced beer brands, for example: Bud, Miller, Oly, and Lite.

The film's poster presented a fairly succinct synopsis of the plot:

"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."

REPO MAN ... it's 4 A.M., do you know where your car is?

• in the film's classic opening sequence - J. Frank Parnell (Fox Harris), the driver of a dilapidated 1964 Chevy Malibu sedan, was on a journey from Los Alamos, NM (a famed site for secret nuclear research) to California's Mojave Desert; he was pulled over for his erratic driving by a highway motorcycle patrol officer who asked: "What you got in the trunk?"; despite warnings from the spaced-out Frank about his cargo: ("You don't wanna look in there"), when the cop opened the trunk, he was immediately vaporized by a nuclear blast down to his semi-melted, smoking leather boots; Frank continued his drive to Los Angeles - to the sound of an Iggy Pop tune ("Repo Man Theme Song")
• the opening suggested an iconic 'Holy Grail' existence of a glowing white-light thing (a weapons-grade plutonium, radioactive neutron bomb or the remains of four dead aliens?) being transported by an insane government agent
• the film's central teenaged character was a young punk rocker Otto Maddox (Emilio Estevez) who was introduced in Los Angeles, CA; he was a nihilistic, disaffected grocery store stock clerk, fired by his boss Mr. Humphries (Charles Hopkins) for losing his temper and insubordination on the job after he had become aggravated that his nerdy, simpleton co-worker Kevn (Zander Schloss) was annoyingly singing a 7-Up jingle ("I'm feelin' 7-up. Feelin' 7-up, I'm feelin' 7-up")
• things weren't going well for Otto when soon after, Debbi (Jennifer Balgobin), Otto's punk-rock girlfriend, dumped him at a raucous party to hook up with his recently-released ex-con best friend Duke (Dick Rude) as her new sex partner
• now both unemployed with no money and upset by his romantic break-up, the disillusioned, disenfranchised and frustrated Otto was wandering in a dangerous Hispanic neighborhood in LA; laid-back, master repo-man Bud (Harry Dean Stanton) pulled up next to him, and offered him $25 dollars - to assist him by driving his sick and pregnant 'wife's' car (a 1978 Olds Cutlass Salon) and following him out of the area

Otto Maddox (Emilio Estevez) and Bud (Harry Dean Stanton)

• while following Bud's car, Otto realized he had been tricked and swindled when the car's true Hispanic owner gave chase; they ended up at the offices of the Helping Hand Acceptance Corporation (a predatory 'repossession' car company that seized cars from delinquent debtors)
• now that Otto knew that Bud's ruse was to repossess the car, he became defiant, poured out the beer he was given, and turned down master 'repo-man' Bud's offer to work as an apprentice for him: ("Screw that! I ain't gonna be no repo man, no way"); the office's receptionist Marlene (Vonetta McGee) reminded Bud that he was already on the payroll as she handed him $25 dollars: ("It's too late, you already are")
• during a visit with his ex-hippie, stoned-out marijuana-smoking parents (Jonathon Hugger and Sharon Gregg) who lived in Edge City, Otto discovered that they had given his HS graduation money reward (of $1,000 for completing HS) to crooked, right-wing tele-evangelist Reverend Larry (Bruce White) to send Bibles to El Salvador: (Father: "It was a gift from all of us, jointly")
• Otto changed his mind about Bud's job offer and returned to the Repo office; he was easily lured to work in the exploitative world of automobile repossession; the co-workers at Otto's new job became his new 'family' of sorts - they were a number of eccentric, mercenary, rebellious and paranoid characters who shared a certain camaraderie with each other, and the world-weary Bud was becoming Otto's surrogate father figure
• as part of Otto's job training, Bud described some of the requirements of the job while snorting speed with Otto - he would work mostly nights, had to wear a cop-uniform, would face "tense situations," and would become sleep-deprived
• Bud also explained the "Repo Code" of honor: "Never broke into a car. Never hot-wired a car, kid. I never broke into a trunk. I shall not cause harm to any vehicle nor the personal contents thereof. Nor through inaction let that vehicle or the personal contents thereof come to harm. That's what I call the Repo Code, kid. Don't forget it - etch it in your brain. Not many people got a code to live by anymore"; then he added: "See an ordinary person spends his life avoiding tense situations. Repo man spends his life getting into tense situations"
• Bud also warned Otto about the competition facing the Helping Hand repo company - a rival used car sales lot was owned by the hated Rodriguez Brothers (Lagarto (Del Zamora) and Napoleon "Napo" (Eddie Velez)); the two used car swindlers and scam-artists sold Helping Hand's repossessed car at low prices (with high interest rates) in order to keep the turn-over rate of repo-cars high; in the LA River basin, Otto engaged in a car race with the Rodriguez Brothers
• while driving a flashy red repossessed car (a 1976 Cadillac), Otto gave a ride to a hitchhiking activist Leila (Olivia Barash) to her work at the United Fruitcake Outlet; during the ride, she ducked down to avoid being spotted by 'government agents' in a nearby car
• Leila also claimed that she was part of a secret underground network of renegades who believed in the existence of ETs or extraterrestrials and life in outer space; she showed Otto a cryptic photograph she had in her possession, and claimed that the bodies of four radioactive dead aliens were recently smuggled from the Los Alamos AF base in the trunk of a 1964 Chevy Malibu being driven by one of the base's scientists, but the car went missing

During a Search for the Malibu, and the Aliens in the Trunk of the Car
Leila (Olivia Barash) - A Believer in Aliens	$20,000 Bounty for Chevy Malibu	Picture of Dead Aliens in Tabloid

• she and the network were conducting a search for the car and the aliens ("We gotta find them"), and they were preparing a press conference to tell the world; a $20,000 bounty 'wanted notice' and offer went out for the Chevy Malibu from the renegade underground network - it was the reward for locating the car (and its trunk's contents); the Rodriguez brothers, Bud, and others learned of the reward and went on a mission to claim the money
• Otto was very skeptical of Leila until later after he saw her photo in the National Enquirer; meanwhile, spaced-out, screwy Miller, a mechanic working at Helping Hand, delivered a bizarre philosophical monologue about a "lattice of coincidence" while burning clothes in a trash barrel with co-worker Otto: "A lot o' people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch o' unconnected incidents 'n things. They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice o' coincidence that lays on top o' everything. Give you an example; show you what I mean: suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly somebody'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconciousness"
• Miller went on to describe other elements that were tied together, including the Bermuda Triangle, and UFOs, flying saucers and spaceships that he believed were time machines; he ended by summarizing: "People get so hung up on specifics. They miss out on seeing the whole thing"; he also stated his preference for transportation - the bus: ("The more you drive, the less intelligent you are")
• the sickened lunatic Los Alamos scientist Parnell - who was driving the 1964 Chevy Malibu - arrived in LA where he was scheduled to meet other UFO compatriots; however, he had become weakened and sickened by the radioactivity; when he stopped for gas at a gas station (and was vomiting), it was seized by the predatory repo Rodriguez Brothers
• the car quickly changed hands a few more times; the parked Chevy Malibu (while the Rodriguez Brothers stopped for sodas and called Marlene from a phone booth) was stolen by a trio of Otto's thieving punk friends (Otto's ex-girlfriend Debbi, Duke, and Archie (Miguel Sandoval) who were robbing a liquor store
• later, Parnell came upon his car at a night club, and challenged the three punks into opening the trunk (Duke burned his hand, but Archie was entirely incinerated); Duke and Debbi were scared away and went off to commit more crimes: (Duke: "Let's go get sushi and not pay"), allowing Parnell to reclaim and take possession of his car
• in an outdoor scene at Helping Hand, Miller told his beer-drinking buddies (who disagreed with him): "John Wayne was a fag...He was, too, you boys. I installed two-way mirrors in his pad in Brentwood, and he come to the door in a dress"
• a frantic search for the car was conducted by many competing groups: Otto and Bud (and their Helping Hand colleagues including Miller (Tracey Walter), Oly (Tom Finnegan), and black man Lite (Sy Richardson)), the Rodriguez Brothers, Leila who was kidnapped by government agents and then cooperated with eccentric alien-seeker Agent Rogersz (Susan Barnes) with a metal left hand, and the trio of crime-obsessed punks (now reduced to only two - Duke and Debbi); as a result of Bud threatening the Rodriguez Brothers with a baseball bat prompting a harrassment suit to be iled against Helping Hand, Bud was fired
• on his own, Otto chased down the lobotomized "loonie" Parnell (whose mind was 'eroding') and was offered a hitched ride in the Malibu; during the aimless trip, Otto was told about Parnell's tormented scientist 'friend' who invented the neutron bomb and requested a lobotomy after realizing the consequences of nuclear war: ("Ra-di-a-tion, yes indeed! You hear the most outrageous lies about it. Half-baked goggle-boxed do-gooders telling everybody it’s bad for you. Pernicious nonsense! Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year. They ought to have 'em, too. When they canceled the project, it almost did me in. One day my mind was literally a-burst. The next day nothing. Swept away. But I showed them. I had a lobotomy in the end....Friend of mine had one. Designer of the neutron bomb. You ever hear of the neutron bomb? Destroys people - leaves buildings standing. Fits in a suitcase. It's so small, no one knows it's there until - BLAMMO. Eyes melt, skin explodes, everybody dead. So immoral, working on the thing can drive you mad. That's what happened to this friend of mine. So he had a lobotomy. Now he's well again")
• soon after, Parnell passed out, collapsed and died from radiation sickness due to prolonged exposure; Otto dragged Parnell's body out of the car and drove back to the Helping Hand lot, where he parked the Malibu, locked the gate and went on a search for Bud; Otto didn't realize that Bud was lying in wait there at the lot to resteal and then hide the car; after hiding the vehicle, Bud reunited with Otto
• together at a liquor store, Bud was shot in the head during a robbery committed by Debbi's new boyfriend, and he was hospitalized
• in the film's crazed and climactic conclusion - consisting of many twists and turns regarding the car's location and possession, many of the characters reconverged, including government agents and Agent Rogersz, Marlene, the Rodriguez brothers, the repo-men, UFO scientists, and even the Bible-waving televangelist
• Bud snuck away from his hospital room to escape capture by the agents, retrieved the Chevy Malibu (he was the only one who knew its whereabouts) and drove back to the Helping Hand's repossession lot; as Bud defiantly sat behind the wheel in the glowing bright green Malibu, Otto warned him to be sensible and give up the car: "Only an asshole gets killed over a car"; the defiant Bud, who attempted to defend his claim to the car with a handgun, was machine-gunned by a sniper-agent in a circling helicopter and then died in Otto's arms

		Bud Machine-Gunned by a Sniper in a Helicopter
Bud Seated in the Glowing Malibu in the Helping Hand's Lot

• as Otto held on tightly to the dying Bud, the Malibu (with sparks) emitted a mysterious, blinding light force field (a parody of the climax of Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)), and held back or incinerated even those wearing flame-retardant Hazmat suits who tried to get close; the tele-evangelist's Bible was struck by sparks and burst into flames

Bright Green Malibu	Miller at the Wheel	Glowing and Levitating Car
Otto's Wide-Eyed Amazement	The Speeding Car	Cosmic Ride

• in the film's final moments, Helping Hand mechanic Miller (a believer in aliens - a time traveler?) was easily able to slide behind the wheel to go for a "spin" even though he didn't know how to drive; he summoned Otto to join him as a passenger; Otto left the dying Bud, and also ignored Leila who claimed they had a "relationship" (Otto: "F--k that!"); during a euphoric, cosmic drive for both time-travelers Miller and Otto, the car miraculously levitated, sped away for an "intense" ride across the LA skyline, and then blasted into interplanetary outer space
• the ending credits scrolled downwards instead of upwards