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.

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.

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.