REPO! The Genetic Opera
2008/2009 Lion’s Gate Pictures

The Short Version: In a dystopian future, GeneCo saves the lives of millions by creating financing plans for organ transplants, then encouraging people to undergo painful elective surgery that hooks them on a crazy futuristic painkiller- then turns around and has it made legal for masked assassins to perform bloody ‘repossessions.’

And it’s a musical.

The Long Version:

EVERYBODY! EVERYBODY!

PEOPLE PEOPLE PEOPLE, S-S-STAND UP!!

I felt like breaking pace and talking about a movie instead of a video game for once. And further bucking trends, it’s not a completely shitty movie where Jackie Chan makes an ass of himself, or so on. Coming off like Hannibal Lecter’s vision of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, Repo is a movie about what I said about four or five one-sentence paragraph breaks ago. Scroll up if you have to. I’m not repeating myself.

Now, maybe it’s my own fault for gravitating for movies that are either so obscure or esoteric that simply having seen them gives me an invisible neckbeard of dork authority, or so brainless that they could run out of script and spend thirty minutes exploding things in slow motion (TRANSFORMERS), but Repo! was probably the best new thing I’ve seen in 2009. It’s also the first and only new movie I’ve watched in 2009. But I’m sure it’s still going to hold up against Transformers: Revenge Of Michael Bay is A Fucktard come June. Mixing dark, grimy humor and a surprisingly solid plot, it really does come off as more of a classical piece of theater rather than a slasher flick like some of the promo material makes it look. There’s a handful of leads with well defined links to one another as well as individual motives, and the story is even narrated over by a sort of greasy version of a Greek chorus in the form of a Psyclo grave robber.

Naturally, a musical is defined by its music quality, and the songs in this picture (and indirectly the plot) are catchy as hell and high quality, nearly all of it featuring driving beats or industrial grating without degrading into house music. The only number that sucks is Shilo’s “Seventeen” number which sounds about like a punk cover of the Bangles or something. Standouts include “Mark It Up,” which is sung by a pair of brothers squabbling over an inheritance while tossing organs around and stabbing passerby- with cartoon sound effects. Which is really less annoying than it is in pretty much- EVERYTHING EVER. In fact, it helps the movie be just a tad more palatable to squeamish sorts in the audience. Everything is so over the top that you’re pretty much desensitized to the antics as it goes along- The Repo Man guts a guy and removes his intestines while singing about his crummy job, finishing the number by shoving his arm up inside him and singing a duet with the victim worked like a puppet.

(The best part of that scene is after he’s done doing that, the actor has this priceless look on his face as if to say “What the FUCK did I just do?”)

The plot is basically tragic, but satisfying in spite of an open end. Not to give much away, but the insanely rich CEO of GeneCo (Rotti Largo) is terminally ill and must choose an heir to his vast fortunes. His own children are a psychopath (Weegee), a pervert (Paaaaavi), and Paris Hilton (seriously, that about sums it up- and she’s played by her), so he pursues the daughter of his lost former love who ran away from him to be with a doctor under his employ. Said doctor, Nathan Wallace, has his daughter under lock and key to protect her from the outside world (and his secret identity as REEEEEPOOOO MAAAAAN), his wife having died giving birth. Also factored in is the dead wife’s old friend Mag, who was given trippy cybernetic eyes by Rotti in exchange for lending her singing talents to become the superstar “Voice of GeneCo.” Shilo naturally yearns to see the outside world, and Rotti does a damned good job of tempting her and generally being the Devil incarnate while still coming off as about the most charismatic character in the movie.

The movie climaxes at the titular Genetic Opera, a spectacle arranged byRotti. Antics ensue, eyes are gouged, people die, and the curtain falls to a somewhat ambiguous ending, but given how corrupt the world seems in general by the time you’re done watching, it might almost be better that way.