REPO! Is an anomaly in universe. It was funded by an actual studio (Lions Gate), it’s a musical (An R rated one!), it doesn’t have any big stars (Paris Hilton is not a star. She’s a cancer.) and it’s gory subject matter (“Live Organ Repossession!”) is out-there to say the least for Mr and Mrs. Doe who loved that edgy film where Superstar Jesus Christ belted out those electric jams! They can’t even get have the torture porn loving pre-teens audience either, because there’s all that “QUEER! ” singing on screen (“SLAYER RULES!) I’d hate to be the producer that wakes up and realizes he “A-Okay’ed” this little gem of an idea during a coke fuelled round of Scattegories.Now that we’ve gotten the obvious out of the way, I’m just going to tell you if the flick is any good or not.
“At the heart of the story is Shilo Wallace (Alexa Vega), a 17 year-old girl with a rare blood disease. She has been kept locked up and protected in her house, where she is guarded from the outside world by her father, Nathan Wallace (Anthony Head). While Shilo struggles with her wish to leave the house and experience the outside world, Nathan struggles with his job as the repo man, and more specifically, his next target, a woman named Blind Mag (Sarah Brightman). Blind Mag was a friend of Nathan's now-deceased wife, and is Shilo's godmother.”
The world (of what we see of it) pops with futurist grimness and boasts a catchy enough (I’ll get back to that further down) musical score. Anthony Stewart Head is mesmerizing as the lead “Repo man” and his booming emotional voice saved a few songs that could have landed flat on their face. Alexa Vega as his daughter has a strong precense, but I can’t help but picture any generic teen pop star’s face to her singing voice. The rest of the cast pull off their roles admirably. Paul Sorvino acts with all the bluster that his evil role demands. Bill Mosley is his evil psycho self. Sarah Brightman does her song and dance (How the hell did she get here?). Paris Hilton didn’t make me cringe when she appeared on screen. She actually fit the role of the drugged up ditzy cutter addict perfectly! Who woulda thunk it?The thing that surprised me the most was the scale of the story. We get a few EPIC! swoop-y CGI shots of a futuristic city, but other than that the whole thing takes place in about five locations. The songs are operatic to the extreme but characters live in their own small universe. I could feel that this was once an off-Broadway play that was put on in a tiny bar. It isn’t bad, just a sign that everyone believes that the actual songs will carry the film home. Not many explosions here folks.
Finally, we talk about all that musical madness: If people need to speak in REPO they do it in a sing-song fashion that usually (but not always) ditches the verse-chorus-verse structure of a regular song for a more free form poetry variety. At first, it was a bit disconcerting and the music squished didn’t stand out. They sounded like nothing more than someone putting inflections on poetry with some generic music backing it up. It isn’t until Mr. Head open his mouth to belt out a tune that the music improves considerably. We start to feel each song become its own entity and the ride smoothes out till the curtain finally closes. The direction by Darren Lynn Bousman is seemingly work-manlike, but that’s only because he pulls the camera back and lets his performers...well...perform. There’s no flashy quick cuts, uncomfortable close ups or sped up motion here. There are a few stylish touches (Comic Book Back Stories) but nothing that draws unnecessary attention to itself. The subject matter is odd enough that it doesn’t need flash to make it appealing. Darren Lynn directed the first ever live REPO show ten years ago and this world is all his. The only styalistic Saw cross-over is a completely unnecessary re-cap of the whole film in thirty seconds. Damn. That's annoying
At the end of the day (and this over long review) it all comes down to two things: Do you like musicals? Do you like horror themed subject matter reaching on its tippie toes for cult success? If you answer YES to one of those and are willing to give a little leeway to the second then check this chipped treasure out.
NOTE: Bousman shot a short 10 MINUTE demo reel for this a few years back in a bid to get financing. The short starred Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer star Micheal Rooker!
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