Why so much hype?

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

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.

I'm very late to the party as I just watched this movie today (30/31 October 2016) but I have only good things to say about this movie. It's funny, it's deep yet light hearted, it deals with serious issues but doesn't take itself or its characters seriously. And that's why it's touching and moving. I appreciated the "widget" as Hitchcock calls it all the more as I watched Kiss Me Deadly (check it out) with the secret suitcase everyone is after. Sit back and relax, enjoy the ride. The music is also great and non obtrusive by the way. I wanted to stop there but I have to write more. The photography is beautiful, the cast is fantastic. Harry Dean Stanton and Emilio Estevez are incredible, but there isn't a bad performance in this movie.

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.

Released in 1984, "Repo Man" is at the confluence of punk rock and generic brands. Starring Emilio Estevez as Otto, "Repo Man" is the hip story of disaffected youth. In the early 80s, men were still wearing wide lapels, paisley ties, and coiffed hair, and our hero in "Repo Man" has a buzz cut and a pierced ear sporting a cross. And when he drinks beer, it comes in a white can that says "BEER," and the can has a huge UPC on the side.In addition to Mr. Estevez, we have the inimitable Harry Dean Stanton and Sy Richardson as Otto's mentors in the car repo business. Otto's fellow repo men are named Bud, Miller, Lite, and Oly. If you can see "Repo Man" on the big screen, I recommend it because the signs in the background are part of telling the story of the punk esthetics, with Mr. Stanton's voice over and Mr. Richardson's smooth lyricism. Read all the signs.Among the strange things about the punk movement is how modern it still is. Compare the costumes here with, say, "Earth Girls Are Easy," a film released four years later. The costumes in EGAE are hopelessly dated, but you'd be hard pressed to put a year on "Repo Man" based on how people dressed.And unlike EGAE, "Repo Man" still holds up. It's a funny movie still.