Review for Repo Chick

"You guys are repo men? I saw a movie about you!" Yeah well, if you were expecting Alex Cox's Repo Chick to be anything like the original, then you may be in for a disappointment. Whilst retaining the same petulant anarchy as its predecessor, this anti-sequel abandons the punk rock aesthetic in favour an artificial green screen world that comes across like an episode of kid's TV show LazyTown recreated by Ralph Steadman. Filled with life sized toy trains and candy floss pinks, this is a pop art collage that is as nauseating as it is charming.

The film's fake looking LA is inhabited by fake looking protagonist Pixxi De La Chasse (Janet Joycn, excellent) a celebutante heiress disinherited by her family for one too many public indiscretions (drunk driving, promiscuous sex, the usual). Challenged to get a job, she ends up in the repossession trade (thriving thanks to the recession) and finds she's got actually got a knack for it. After all, who better to prey upon poverty stricken unfortunates than some morally vacuous Paris Hilton-alike uber bitch? "At first I felt bad…about having to get up way early and having to dress down to fit in," she explains after kicking a family out of their trailer home.

As a representation of modern sensibilities (apathetic, consumptive) Pixxi is a pretty good one, but Cox never settles there. He's like a political radical with ADD and the film loses focus as he attacks everything from bankers, America's oil obsession, whitebread senators, the media, religion, meat eating, nuclear armament and golf ("this is about climate change too," one character kindly reminds us). While this critique on capitalist mores is pertinent, it never congeals into a unified affront, and when coupled with the loud visuals (and a poor audio mix) the film becomes something of a headache.

But then at least Cox cares (this is after all the director blacklisted when his Walker dared question America's interventionist foreign policy) and he still remains a filmmaker with a social conscious looking at new forms of expression. While not entirely successful, Repo Chick is brash, confrontational and funny ("let's hear what the jerk has to say and then if we don't like it we'll just throw him down the stairs"). In short, a Film by Alex Cox.