My experience of this movie is remarkably similar to that of many of the other reviewers. I saw it in the theater (as part of an English class assignment, no less!) when I was a college freshman in 1984. It blew me away.
Some of the negative reviewers have pointed out aspects of this movie that seem derivative to them - but the other items they claim it to reference (e.g., Tarentino's work) came AFTER this one. Who's derivative? Let me tell you, at the time this movie was something completely new. No, of course punk wasn't new anymore, but this movie and its style were completely out of left field. Having just escaped dreadful, brainless Reagan suburbia for the fertile grounds of college and the big city, it was a big gust in the fresh air I was suddenly breathing, and I loved it. Still do.
I loved the nihilistic punk sensibility, down to the generic food labels, even though I never completely figured out all the symbolism, if any was intended. Maybe the point, very precisely, WAS the futility of trying to find sense in a chaotic world in which there was no sense to be made. In any case, it absolutely defined the era in which I was living, and reigned as "my favorite movie" for several years.
So many classic jokes and catch phrases, regularly referenced by myself and my friends for years to come, came from Repo Man ... "BAD AREA", "You find one in every car ... you'll see", "Otto, what about our relationship? ... F*** that!", "Ordinary f***ing people, I hate 'em", "And yet ... I blame society", "Let's go do some crimes", "Looking for the joke with a microscope", "There's f***ing room to move as a fry cook", "Pablo Picasso was never called an a**hole", "A Repo Man spends his live getting into tense situations", the whole John Wayne exchange. And the soundtrack is one of the best in history.
Is my opinion tainted by the atmosphere in which I was exposed to it? Sure, but it's still a great movie.
Some of the negative reviewers have pointed out aspects of this movie that seem derivative to them - but the other items they claim it to reference (e.g., Tarentino's work) came AFTER this one. Who's derivative? Let me tell you, at the time this movie was something completely new. No, of course punk wasn't new anymore, but this movie and its style were completely out of left field. Having just escaped dreadful, brainless Reagan suburbia for the fertile grounds of college and the big city, it was a big gust in the fresh air I was suddenly breathing, and I loved it. Still do.
I loved the nihilistic punk sensibility, down to the generic food labels, even though I never completely figured out all the symbolism, if any was intended. Maybe the point, very precisely, WAS the futility of trying to find sense in a chaotic world in which there was no sense to be made. In any case, it absolutely defined the era in which I was living, and reigned as "my favorite movie" for several years.
So many classic jokes and catch phrases, regularly referenced by myself and my friends for years to come, came from Repo Man ... "BAD AREA", "You find one in every car ... you'll see", "Otto, what about our relationship? ... F*** that!", "Ordinary f***ing people, I hate 'em", "And yet ... I blame society", "Let's go do some crimes", "Looking for the joke with a microscope", "There's f***ing room to move as a fry cook", "Pablo Picasso was never called an a**hole", "A Repo Man spends his live getting into tense situations", the whole John Wayne exchange. And the soundtrack is one of the best in history.
Is my opinion tainted by the atmosphere in which I was exposed to it? Sure, but it's still a great movie.