Something about the affect of this film really underlines how it was originally envisioned at one-tenth of its final budget... Spent most of the runtime trying to pin it down politically.
When [director Alex] Cox showed the film to his contacts in the real world of Los Angeles auto repossession, they found it to be a diluted version of their much more terrifying job. […]
— Sam McPheeters (Criterion)
Nearly 30 years later, Repo Man is no worse for the wear. Not so much ahead of its time as outside of it. […] Repo Man’s critique of its era’s swirling dynamic of excesses and emptiness, and its tendency to engender this alienation, may seem a bit reactionary and adolescent. Yet it remains potent when apprehended in this very energetic, adolescent naïveté. […] Bland white-and-blue cans labeled “lite beer” and “yellow cling sliced peaches” may seem like blunderingly flagrant critiques of capital, but their blatancy is only commensurate with the brazenness of capital itself.
— John Semley (Slant Magazine)
A down and out young punk gets a job working with a seasoned repo man, but what awaits him in his new career is a series of outlandish adventures revolving around aliens, the CIA, and a most wanted '64 Chevy.