Director: Alex Cox
Written by: Alex Cox
Cast: Harry Dean Stanton, Emilio Estevez, Tracey Walter, Olivia Barash

Year / Country: 1984, USA
Running Time: 92 mins.

Repo men are repossessors. They take back cars from bad debtors who have failed to pay their bills. They often work through the night and rely on speed to keep up with the demands of the job. Suburban punk Otto (Emilio Estevez) lands a position with the Helping Hand Corporation, where his mentor becomes veteran repossessor Bud (Harry Dean Stanton), who shows him the ropes.

Together, Bud and Otto make an effective car-recovery team, but the job comes with plenty of threats: the fierce Rodriguez brothers as rival operators, a gang of punks, and even the government. Trigger-happy car owners frequently complicate matters as well. The story really gains momentum when a highly valuable Chevy Malibu is flagged for repossession. What no one realizes, however, is that the car originates from Roswell, New Mexico and that its trunk contains a mysterious alien device.

Writer-director Alex Cox once worked as a repo man himself, and he blends that firsthand experience with sci-fi elements to create something decidedly unconventional. Repo Man carries a strong cult vibe, which is both rare and appealing. The downside is that this atmosphere sometimes feels like the film’s main selling point. Still, a number of funny moments and consistently enjoyable performances make it a very watchable movie, just not quite the cult masterpiece it might have been.

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Biography: Alex Cox (1954, Liverpool) left law school to study film at Bristol University. Then he worked as a repo-man. He used his experiences in this profession to write and direct his feature debut Repo Man. After that, he worked as an actor, writer and director. He was successful in the eighties, especially with Sid and Nancy. Since the nineties, he mostly directed TV-movies and documentaries.

Filmography: Sleep is for Sissies (1980, short), Repo Man (1984), Sid and Nancy (1986), Straight to Hell (1987), Walker (1987), Red Hot and Blue (1990, TV), Highway Patrolman (1991), Death and the Compass (1992), The Winner (1996), Three Businessmen (1998), Kurosawa: The Last Emperor (1999, TV-doc), A Hard Look (2000, TV-doc), Revengers Tragedy (2002), Mike Hama, Private Detective: Mike Hama Must Die! (2002, TV), I’m a Juvenile Delinquent, Jail Me! (2004, TV), Searchers 2.0 (2007), Repo Chick (2009), Straight to Hell Returns (2010)