Skip Tracer

Skip Tracer tells the story of John Collins, a collections agent, whose entire job is to lean on poor people for their outstanding debts, after they have taken out predatory loans, that leave them with a lien on everything they own.

Collins' job is to get the money they owe, by any means necessary.

If they are unable to pay in the allotted time, he will shamelessly repossess all their worldy possessions, without a second thought.

He's so good at his job...that he's been "Man of the Year" at his company, for 4 years running.

But it's conditioned him to become, nothing short of, a psychopath in the process.

This year, however...he's set to face a reckoning.

As he not only gets stabbed by a hockey mask wearing culprit (which may or may not have acted as the inspiration for the Jason character from the Friday The 13th movies).

But is forced to reflect on his very nature...when his actions...lead to consequences that he simply cannot ignore.

Ultimately leading to his redemption in the conclusion of the film.

I caught this on 16mm at a Canadian National Film Day screening at my local microcinema.

Going into it with low expectations...fully expecting that it was going to be super cheesey, and all around trashy.

Only to be pleasntly surprised to find that it was actually a pretty solid film, that is both competently constructed and generally quite well done.

I must admit that I rather quite enjoyed it.

Having been shot in Vancouver, it might not be the easiest example of cultural Canadiana to find.

But if you can track it down, it's certainly a worthwhile film to watch.

As, on top of being a pretty decent film, it also acts a cool little time capsule of Vancouver in the 70's.

So definitely give it a shot if you do.

6 out of 10.

There was a screening of Skip Tracer tonight in Vancouver (24 March 2011), at art-house cinema Pacific Cinémathèque, the first in perhaps twenty years in the city where the film was made. The screening was presented by writer and critic Michael Turner, and some of the cast and crew from 1977 were in attendance, including lead David Petersen. Following the screening there was an informal back and forth among Turner, cast and crew members, and the audience. More than one of the cast members mentioned that the film has always been more highly regarded in England and Europe than it ever was here in Canada, and the location of all the previous reviewers would seem to confirm that judgment.

I agree with the general consensus among previous reviewers that Skip Tracer is a small gem. And as a Vancouverite, the film has the added resonance of depicting the recent past of a city that has been changing at a bewildering pace. I think Skip Tracer's vision of a raw, nasty Vancouver was getting at something that might still be here, albeit polished over with the wealth and gloss of thirty years of high-end development.

An audience member asked Petersen if he could speculate a bit on the character of John Collins. "He's a bit ambiguous," the audience member said, "quite an a**hole throughout, although at the end I guess he's sort of redeemed." Petersen thought for a while, took his time, and then just replied, "No."

I don't think Collins is meant to be an a**hole. He's a deeply conflicted character, just as trapped as the 'clients' he mercilessly hounds, and there's plenty of humanity buried beneath the steely, almost catatonic demeanour. If there wasn't, the film would be far less interesting. You could certainly read the whole thing as a Marxist critique of the emotional and psychic damage wrought by capitalism and its often seedy workings. But that would also diminish much of the film's three-dimensionality. Nevertheless, Skip Tracer's exploration of the toxicity of debt, and our hunger for money, certainly feels timely. The film has aged well.

This grainy, grimy filmed story of a collection agency superstar (top guy four years running) is one brutal unrelenting piece of dark independent cinema. Director writer Zale Dalen in economically imaginative fashion follows the day to day efforts of an unctuous process collector John Collins (David Petersen) and the sadistic delight he gets on forclosing on anything that isn't nailed down, perfectly summed up as he reposesses a small TV set that a child is watching cartoons on.

Played with a very effective bland indifference by Petersen, Dalen makes no attempt to soften Collins or his pond scum associates. "You wanna be loved be a minister," roars one in a sleazy strip joint scene that beautifully sums up the depraved lifestyle and occupation.

In addition to his uncompromising storyline, Dalen does some interesting work with his soundtrack to emphasize pressure and inner turmoil as Collins deconstructs and makes a desultory attempt at redemption but not before a brutally powerful reckoning that makes this bleak story bleaker. Unrelenting grim stuff.

I haven't seen the film after that sole showing on British TV (see the other comments!) and never met anyone who's seen it (except my brother Fred who watched avidly with me), but the memory has stuck with me ever since. I sense that it may not have dated well, and I sort of fear to see it now, but it remains one of my all-time favourites. It predates Repo Man (another all-time great) but sort of covers similar territory, sort of. It's less surreal and far more gritty, about the hard-nosed skip tracer (that's 'bailiff' to me and maybe 'repo man' to you - anyone know what they call them in Australia and NZ?) who finds he has a heart and promptly watches his whole life and cherished values go down the tube. This came out of the beginning of a period of startlingly good films produced in Canada that lasted up to the early 1990s. There's not that many undiscovered classics around - this is one of them, as are most of those other Canadian movies.

Hollywood Suite in Canada (On Demand subscription service available from Telus) has recently added this film to their 1970s library. It's a fun watch to see Vancouver landmarks from the late '70 in the late decade before a development boom for the City of Vancouver. Low budget made-for-TV feel. I'd never heard of this Canadian production until I stumbled across it on Hollywood Suite as of November 2022. Synopsis says, "An accomplished repo man from Vancouver takes a new hire under his wing, while their morals and limits are tested on the job." Date says 1977 and stars John Lazarus and David Petersen. Runtime is 1 hr 34 mins.