Otto Maddox (Emilio Estevez), a young punk rocker living in Los Angeles, gets fired from his boring job as a supermarket stock clerk. He learns that his burned-out, pot-smoking, ex-hippieparents have donated the money they promised him for finishing school to a crooked televangelist. Depressed and broke, Otto wanders the streets, until he falls in with Bud (Harry Dean Stanton), a seasoned repossession agent, or "repo man", working for the "Helping Hand Acceptance Corporation" (a small automobile repossession agency). Although Otto is initially disgusted by the concept of repossessing cars, his opinion changes rapidly when he is quickly paid in cash for his first "job". Otto joins the agency as a repo man himself.