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Repo Chick
USA / UK 2009
produced by Eric Bassett, Daren Hicks, Simon Tams, Benji Kohn, Austin Stark, Bingo Gubelmann, Alex Cox, Ken Meyer (executive), Tod Davies (executive), Chris Papavasiliou (executive) for Industrial Entertainment, BBC, Defilm, Paper Street Films
directed by Alex Cox
starring Jaclyn Jonet, Miguel Sandoval, Del Zamora, Alex Feldman, Chloe Webb, Danny Arroyo, Bennet Guillory, Rosanna Arquette, Frances Bay, Xander Berkeley, Karen Black, Jenna Colby (as Jenna Zablocki), Zahn McClarnon, Cy Carter, Robert Beltran, Angela Sarafyan, Zander schloss, Jennifer Balgobin, Eddie Velez, Linda Callahan, Tom Finnegan, Biff Yeager, Kari French, Andres Carranza, Banrey Burman, Karen E. Wright, Danbert Nobacon, Olivia Sandoval, Simon Tams, Olivia Barash, Russell Darling, Jonathan Knight, Rene Carrasco, Alex Cox
written by Alex Cox, music by Dan Wool, Kid Carpet, visual effects by Eric Leven/Collateral Image, Sparkle Media
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
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In a parallel USA only slightly removed from our own, the economic
crisis has crippled the country, and these days, you are either filthy
rich or an underpaid or even unemployed have-not. The only business that's
booming these days is the repo business. Now Pixxi (Jaclyn Jonet)
clearly belongs to the filthy rich, she's a spoilt and irresponsible
socialite who thinks she's the center of the world (which is why she has
her own reality TV show) and is way too busy to act like it to actually
put in one day of honest work - until her family cuts her off her money
supply that is. Suddenly she finds herself in desperate need of ... pretty
much everything, and when her car's repossessed, too, she finds herself in
the office of repo-men Aguas (Robert Beltran) and Gray (Miguel Sandoval) -
who offer her a job as repo-girl as some sort of joke ... but she's
getting good at it, much too good. Thus the two re-assign her to trash
heap duty, where she finds a wanted poster for a missing train ... that's
supposed to carry some extremely powerful warheads. Everybody tells her
this is only an urban legend, a myth only vaguely based on reality, but
she becomes obsessed with finding the train ... and then she does - not
only that, she even boards it, with quite a few political and religious
dignitaries. Once the train is moving though, everybody aboard finds out
this is not a trip that will demonstrate the advantages of green energy,
but that the host Lorenzo (Del Zamora) is a mad eco-terrorist who wants to
ban golf courts and wants the president and the cabinet to go vegan. If
his demands are not met, he will blow up the train with all the
dignitaries in the center of LA. Now that's bad, even worse might be that
Pixxi is so eager to get the reward money on the train that she phones in
its position to the gouvernment agency looking for it, and it's quickly
decided the train is to be blown up via drone strike. Fortunately, Pixxi
also calls Gray for help, who diverts the train away from LA, and when the
train goes into a tunnle, that pretty much takes care of the drones. From
here on it's easy going for Pixxi to take care of the bad guys and become
a national heroine ... What this film is is a self-consciously
trashy, blunt and a bit loud sci-fi comedy based on the radical ideas you
have come to expect from director Alex Cox, who despite all bluntness
though is clever enough to never try to force the ideas onto the audience.
There are several nice plot devices in this story, too, including making a
Paris Hilton-like brat (who gets quite a bit of depth in the course of the
proceedings) the hero of an action plot, and Jaclyn Jonet actually turns
in a pretty good performance. What we also get is a story set in a
toyland, as it was shot almost entirely in front of green screens, and
most of the "locations" are easily recognizable miniatures,
which might be a way to cut costs, but it also gives the film its own
unique look - that unfortunately grows tired on one before too long. What
this film is not is a sequel to Alex Cox' classic Repo
Man, and it isn't in league with that movie to be quite honest
(nor with most other movies in Cox' filmography), as it lacks that movie's
subtlety and virtuosity - but it never tries to be the next Repo
Man and tries to stay as far away from that movie as possible -
quite a feat considering the similarities in subject. So what we're left
with is a movie that's definitely less than a cult classic, heck, it's not
even a particularly memorable film - but for its running time at least
it's crazy fun. Definitely not Alex Cox at his best - but not at his
worst, either.
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