Retrospective Film Review

Repo Man (1984) • 40 Years Later —unmissable punk sci-fi cult classic

A young punk, recruited by a car repo agency, finds himself in pursuit of a Chevrolet Malibu with a huge, $20K bounty — and something otherworldly stashed in its trunk.

Repo Man is very much a product of its time yet still feels fresh and audaciously original. There are no obvious precursors to the dazzling debut from writer-director Alex Cox that perfectly reflects the anxiety and ennui of ‘the blank generation’. Nor do any successors spring to mind — nothing quite like it has been, or could be, made since.

That said, Cox himself has been touting the idea of a sequel since the mid-1990s. An abortive attempt, titled Waldo’s Hawaiian Holiday, went into production in 2005 but ultimately ended up being published as a graphic novel in 2008. Cox wrote and directed the spoof film, Repo Chick (2009), retreading similar ground but with a female lead and a plot involving kidnapping in addition to repossessing planes, trains, and automobiles. This was a…