Coca-Cola kid

This is one of the most fantastic movies ever made.

I'm not kidding.

Essentially the movie is about corporate America vs. Australia. More broadly, the film is about American corporate imperialism and a country's attempt to resist it.

Eric Roberts plays the gung-ho American coca-cola executive ("the marines have landed on every continent except Australia.. AND HERE I AM!"), intent on establishing a coca-cola franchise in the heart of Australia. The stubbornly independent Australians resist the American businessman with their own brand of humour and subversiveness.

Watch for several layers of meaning throughout the film. Especially the "Waltzing Matilda" scene.

Notable quote: "We have bottling franchises in every country on the planet. Including the moon."

A brilliant movie that will change your life.. or a movie that you'll ignore.

Lots of local (Australian) colour and fun being made of corporate America. This is what we like. :-)

It's about 10 years since I last saw the film and I still sometimes finding myself humming the song, "choke back the tears when there's no Coca-Cola".

Not a great film, but another welcome Aussie comedy.

The film is billed as a comedy and will indeed leave you laughing at many of the situations the central characters get themselves in and out of. The movie should be viewed as a satire of the great American sales and marketing force on the global marketplace.

A hot shot marketing guru from corporate is assigned to help sales down under. He quickly finds a different pace of life and cultural values that he finds hard to adjust to. He continues on "his way" even down to the music for a new series of commercials. He knows "his way" worked well in the U.S. so it should work well anywhere.

Humorous side trips make the journey enjoyable as the guru quickly finds a large area that has no Coca Cola sales. He goes to investigate and finds a local soft drink bottler has the entire area to himself.

The guru uses every gorilla marketing trick he knows to bring the local bottler into the Coke family, but the local bottler resists and even offers Coke a deal. Coke invades the local's territory and the local realizes he cannot win against the Coke attack.

Coke's decisive win costs the company the guru as he finally begins to understand that other things in life, emotions and cultural values, are more important than business wins.

I enjoyed the film and recommend it to you, especially if you want to see a funny version of the 60's novel "The Ugly American."

This is that rare find: a truly lovely yet unpretentious film. Never in their careers have Roberts and Scacchi been more genuinely warm and transparently human. Every twitch of the eye and gesture comes across as the real deal. The direction and writing are wonderfully sparse and unaffected, letting the simple story shine through. This is comedy in it's most understated form, and if the viewer is paying attention, he/she can't help but laugh and cry just as we do in life.

Becker (Eric Roberts) is an eccentric self-possessed sales trouble-shooter sent to Australia from the Coca-Cola headquarters in Atlanta. Terri (Greta Scacchi) is assigned to be his secretary. DMZ is her daughter. He finds one specific area where there is no Coke being sold. It's Anderson valley where Terri comes from. The valley is run by the proud McDowell who makes and sells his own soft drink. He has a history with a Coke advertising girl and together they have a daughter. Becker is looking for the Australian sound.

Eric Roberts is terrific. He has a magical moment with a glass of Coke. I'm always surprised at the film's declaration that they have no connection to Coke. His presentation is like a Mamet speech about the love of Coke. Greta Scacchi is funny and super sexy as a Coca Cola Santa. The problem is that the story isn't much in between the fun scenes. Some of the music is catchy and the movie is a bit of fun.