Released by: Industrial Entertainment
Released on: 2/8/11
Director: Alex Cox
Cast: Jaclyn Jonet, Miguel Sandoval, Del Zamora, Rosanna Arquette
Year: 2009
Purchase From Amazon

The Movie:

A spoiled brat rich princess, Pixxi De La Chasse (Jaclyn Jonet) has disappointed and disgraced the family, and getting her car repossessed for not paying is the last straw. The family is so upset that Daddy and Grandma have decided that she will be dis-inherited of to tens of millions of dollars, unless she gets a job. Taking her entourage in tow (ha! repo run), she heads down where the car was brought to throw her name around and get the car back. She's too late to get the car since the bank has already come for it, but as luck would have it the repo firm is hiring. She's then mentored by Arizona Gray (Miguel Sandoval), the guy who repo'd her car, and she instantly gets results as she has a natural talent for getting what she wants.
She learns of a repo person urban legend: a lost mystery train has a one million-dollar reward attached to it. No one has ever seen it, but she does and goes after the train. The train it so happens is wanted by the CIA because on that train is five unaccounted for Russian bombs, missing since the Cold War, and in the hands of terrorists. The terrorist train owners hold a special luncheon for some political dignitaries and Pixxi gets herself onto the train. She has no idea the train has bombs on it, no idea the people she is getting the train back for are CIA, and all she wants is to just get the train back for the reward.
Repo Chick is a stylistic flick with more flash than substance. Right out of the gate its obvious the look is intended to be cartoonish, using green screens for nearly every background, miniatures that make the miniatures in Godzilla movies look like ones in The Lord of the Rings, and utilizing animation for scenes taking place in a car. At times it looks like a bad Cyndi Lauper video, and it gets old quick. The story is silly and so is the dialogue, with rarely a chuckle. There are characters that amount to very little, as part of side stories that result in nothing important to the main tale. Perhaps this is intentional. The writer/director probably could tell us.
The performances, at least, were far better than the contents. The lead, only having been in one other movie, Searchers 2.0 (another Alex Cox film), does a great job with her character as do the people in her entourage. Cox employs other people from his past projects, including Chloe Webb from Sid & Nancy, Miguel Sandoval and Del Zamora from Repo Man, and Rosanna Arquette. There's not a bad seed in the bunch, but they can't make the film interesting enough.
Maybe the entire movie is a commentary on the flashy society Americans seemed to be so enamored with; maybe it's a statement on mainstream filmmaking over the last two decades; perhaps its one long joke at the viewer's expense. Whatever it is, its not funny, seems disjointed, and is not very entertaining, This comes from the same man who delivered Sid & Nancy and Repo Man, and co-wrote the screenplay for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but hey they can't all be home runs. Right?
Video/Audio/Extras:

Repo Chick is presented with a ratio of 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen. All in all the transfer looks pretty good when you consider the fact that this whole thing was shot on a soundstage against a green screen. That sort of faded artificiality that Cox works into the visuals looks interesting on DVD. The disc is well authored and shows no dirt or debris (not surprisingly given that it was shot digitally) and the image is clean and stable if frequently soft. Audio chores are handled by a Dolby Digital 5.0 mix (not a 5.1 mix) and it's fine. Dialogue is clean, clear, easy to understand and well balanced. English and Spansh subtitles are provided for the feature only.

Extras primarily consist of a twenty-seven minute behind the scenes featurette that interviews the cast and crew and gives us a look at what it was like on set. Cox is sort of an impromptu host as we sit in the passenger seat of his car and he drives around literally taking care of business. His enthusiasm is genuine but it won't change your opinion of the movie. He's an immensely likeable guy and all involved seem to have enjoyed working with him quite a bit. It's also interesting to see how he worked with the green screen technology to get the movie made.

Industrial Entertainment has also released the film on Blu-ray with a considerably sharper and more detailed looking AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer. the compression artifacts present in the standard definition release aren't a problem on the Blu-ray disc, though there's only so much extra detail to bring out of the production as a whole. Colors do look a bit bolder and more natural and black levels just a bit stronger, so the improvements are certainly there, even if they don't immediately jump out at you. Both the feature and the trailer are presented in HD on the Blu-ray release. The audio is also upgraded to a Dolby TrueHD 5.0 mix, with an optional 2.0 Stereo track included as well. The sound is slightly crisper and better defined in the action scenes and it all sounds just a little bit more 'full' than it does on the lossy SD track. English and Spanish subtitles are supplied for the feature only.






The Final Word:

Disappointing output from filmmaker that puts out cult material gets decent releases on both Blu-ray and DVD from Industrial Entertainment.