If you ever saw the TV show "Chuck" in the fourth season, then you MUST see this movie to understand why Harry Dean Stanton guest starred in this TV show.

Its hard to say how influential this movie really was in that it's one of those things that's so original that nobody including the director has tried to really rip it off- However having watched this movie hundreds of times since it came out, the element of it that comes through to me more clearly every time I see it, personally, is the spot on social commentary. But there is so much going on here, and all so well balanced, you could focuse on a different aspect of it every time you see it. Often overlooked, the cinematography is really awesome, done by robby muller who went on to do a lot of work with jim jarmusch, it really elevates the material, as if it needed elevation.

Dr. Parnell is driving a car with a trunk that lights up and disintegrates anybody who opens it. Slacker punk rocker Otto (Emilio Estevez) hates his grocery store job and gets fired. His girlfriend dumps her while sleeping with somebody else at a party. Bud (Harry Dean Stanton) tricks him to repo a car and he's not happy. His parents give away all of their money to a TV preacher and he's forced to take up on Bud's offer. Leila shows Otto a picture of aliens that is suppose to be in a car trunk and then there's a $20k bounty on a Chevy Malibu. Otto battles other repo men, his old punk friends, government agents and UFO enthusiasts as he tries to collect the huge bounty. Miller (Tracey Walter) is the spaced out mechanic at the repo lot. There are some crazy sit going on here. It's a wild irreverent indie. What it's great at is that it gets a sense of the rundown L.A. world. There are great lines like "John Wayne is a fag". It's a low rent indie and it's happy to be there. It's a little punk and something different.

The cult film. We all have at least one. Truly loving an obscure or absurd film is like being in a secret society. It has its own lingo, and sometimes even its own dress code. Somehow I've managed to avoid 'Repo Man', one of the ultimate cult films, for nearly thirty years. So when I stumbled upon a VHS copy while on a recent thrift store sojourn, I thought it was well worth ninety nine cents to see what the fuss was about. Turns out not much.I really wanted to like this film, even thought for a few minutes that I would love it, but ultimately its nothing more than a proto 'Dude, where's my car?' with more four letter words and less narrative clarity. In short; I hated it. With its heavy satire, punk rock soundtrack and absurd story, I can definitely understand why it became a cult classic. I'm just not ready to drink the Kool-Aid.