Repo Man

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Year:	1984
Country of origin:	USA
Director:	Alex Cox
Genre:	Chaotic punk sci-fi satire
Starring:	Harry Dean Stanton, Emilio Estevez, Tracey Walter
Rating:	4/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087995/
Tagline:	A repo man is always intense... but only a fool gets killed for a car.
Favourite line:	"I don't want no commies in my car. No Christians either."

This is demented.
Written and diected by Alex Cox, überpunk and erstwhile presenter of Moviedrome on BBC2 in the UK, this is a savage and sweeping examination of the haves and the have nots in eighties America.

The premise:
Otto is a young man who loses his job in a supermarket after telling his boss to stick it where the sun don't shine. At a loose end, he accepts an invitation to help a passing stranger, and finds himself in a repossession yard, where cars are stored when people can't pay their hire purchase bills.
Taken under the wing of the elder Repo Men, he learns his craft, and is reasonably successful at it too.
Simultaneously, an old Malibu (a car apparently, for us European sorts) is pulled over by a traffic cop and demands to see what is in the boot of the vehicle. The driver argues, but eventually relents. When the cop opens the boot, a blinding light is emitted and he is vaporised where he stands, leaving only his burnt, smouldering boots.
A team of government agents are searching for the vehicle and, inevitably, theirs and Otto's paths are sure to cross.

But thats simple summation does not do this movie justice.
A dazzling array of varied and interesting characters are paraded before us (the trio of punk wannabe crimnials, the conspiracy theorist who refuses to drive as 'the more you drive, the less intelligent you are', the Hispanic rivals to the Repo yard, always gunning for the same money, Otto's dim-witted friend, fired at the same time at the supermarket).
Trippy in places, intense in others, this has everything; black comedy, violence, action, car chases, satirical content.
Inevitably, some of the sequences misfire and come across as a little over the top, in particular the scenes involving the punk gang, but that is a minor gripe.
Considered a cult classic - and it's easy to see why - you'll be exhausted by the end of this one.