The film is about Estevez’ need for self-definition, direction and purpose. It thus unfolds in terms of his sense of his own precarious place in the world. Unlike his punk friends, he has not yet surrendered to total anarchy and futile abandon, and hopes for something more, even if it is perhaps escape from the urban wasteland he seems to have found himself in. He is a non-conformist, a loser fed up with what life has to offer and so latches onto Stanton’s credo, that a repo man spends his life getting into intense situations, in part as a rebellion against the apathy in surrounding society. However, in a film about cars and journeys, these journeys are short and circular, rarely going far and leaving the driver effectively where he started. This notion of the futile journey is a familiar one in American film and its urbanization here infers Repo Man in a line of descent from such classic car-cult movies as Vanishing Point, Gone in 60 Seconds (the original), Grand Theft Auto and even Mad Max. It applies the punk ethos to America’s obsession with vehicular movement and emerges as an unusual hybrid of comedic anarchy, pungent social criticism and spaced-out vehicular existentialism. In this quest for purpose, it is ironic that the rambling garage mechanic (Tracey Walter) turns out to be the most balanced human being in the film: that is, as much as Cox will allow as he charts the reaction against, or surrender to, mounting frustration.
The film has allusions to beat culture (particularly William S. Burroughs) but is never as anarchically misanthropic as is the work of such later directors as Todd Solondz for instance. The illusion of meaning in the film amounts to the search for intense experiences; as if it is intensity alone that drives human existence. From this perspective it is no surprise that the real dropouts and losers are the hippies (Estevez’s parents) who now can only get stoned and pledge money to televangelists. To Cox, the punks are driven to anarchy in the desire to feel alive, for the only alternative is potential numbness. In this context, the cool Walter’s “with-it” notion of cosmic consciousness is another ironic joke, though making for a trippy, intense finale. These people are misguided children in a sense and the evident end of their burn-out is quickly approaching in the absence of any conventional “meaning” offered them to cling to for solace. Thus, although Cox mirrors the punk movement’s active condemnation of modern society, he does not find much of a solace in the empty anarchy of punk itself and portrays the repo men as virtual insomniac speed-freak pseudo-philosophers. He is instead interested in the paradox that lies between despair and a longing for escape that may in fact be the last form of hope left these troubled individuals. He would return to this theme in his subsequent film of Sid and Nancy, placing it in an historical context. read more