L'apprenti millionnaire

The summary says it all. Blank Check is just one of those movies.

The story follows Preston, a young boy who obsesses over money just as quickly as he spends it. One day Preston is riding his bike around, and thus the story begins. He's struck by a car, and although he's okay the driver hands him a blank check to avoid any trouble. Preston goes ahead and fills in one million dollars for that check and manages to cash it and purchase a house and several other excessively self-indulgent items. The man who hit Preston, Quigley, has a darker and more dangerous history and is far from happy when he realized one million is missing from a money scandal he's involved in. The story follows Preston as his greed with money leads him down a tunnel that grows only deeper and deeper. As he makes up lies for spending so much time at a mansion that his parents don't realize he owns and manipulates others around him, Quigley embarks on a journey to hunt down the man (or boy) that took his money.

Blank Check is not realistic and is completely implausible in real life. We all have our own little guilty pleasure movies, whether its Spice Girls or Power Rangers or Rugrats or Blank Check. If this movie doesn't become one of those guilty pleasures, chances are you won't enjoy it and will find it shallow and worthy of several "Oh, yeah right"s.

Needless to say, this is a good family film. Any parents out there should be able to put up with it and kids 12 and under will probably enjoy it.

Don't waste your kids' time with movies about dreams, building relationships with family, overcoming life's obstacles with the help of best friends, or how they can improve themselves through scholarship or sport!

Instead, show your little future corporate CEO or CFO this film and teach them the important values of:

* how fun it is to have valuable toys and possessions, including a go-kart track in the back yard, and your own personal waterslide!

* how money gets people to do anything you want!

* how stealing money's OK, as long as it's from the bad guys!

* a fool and his gold are soon parted (and you don't want to lose your money, do you?)

* be wary of gold digging women!

* you CAN get away with it by lying!

An official selection at the Future Corporate Leaders Film Festival, this movie will be one your kids will always cherish.

Yeah, I remember this one! Many years since I actually watched it. The story was entirely surreal, but nonetheless great! What anyone who rates and reviews movies ought to bear in mind is what the respective movie aims at. It's the same with "First Kid", which follows a similar pattern. Certain movies - like this one here - just aim at plain and comical nonsense. Such movies can't be rated from the point of view of a hypercritical reviewer. Of course these movies lack quality, lack a sophisticated storyline, very often lack first-class acting, but if they do fulfil their primary premise - that's okay. I don't have this movie here on my list of all-time favorites, but I still thought it was funny, had some very enjoyable sequences and made a good story. Brian Bonsall is a smart actor anyway.

Preston Waters' father Fred is tight with money. After all, investments are how he makes his living. But Preston does not get to spend money like the other kids. A good example: he is invited to Butch's birthday party at an amusement park, but he does not get to go on nearly as many rides as the others do.

Preston's brothers Ralph and Damien have money. But they have jobs. Preston is not old enough to have a job. However, his grandmother does send him a blank check for his birthday. Preston's Dad doesn't see it that way, though. He says the boy's grandmother just forgot the amount, and he fills in a prudent number. But as the pretty new teller Shay tells him, it is not even enough to open a bank account!

Meanwhile, bank president Biderman is being asked to launder money by Carl Quigley. Biderman had some bad things to say about him in court, so Biderman will do this for him or else. Quigley intends to send someone to pick up the money the next day at 1:00.

But as Quigley is backing out his car, he is paying attention only to the cops nearby. Preston has fallen off his bicycle, but fortunately, he sees Quigley's car in time. But not in time for his bike. Quigley writes a check but doesn't have time to fill it in. That's okay, though; Preston has a Macintosh computer at home that can do that for him. And he decides the check will be for one million dollars. When he returns to the bank, it is not Shay but a teller who looks like a lunch lady who almost rejects the check. But it is almost 1:00 when Preston is dragged into Biderman's office. Biderman offers Preston juice (or at least that's what he believes). Believing this is Quigley's flunky, Biderman actually gives Preston the money!

And then the real Juice shows up with--guess what--ANOTHER million dollar check.

What do YOU think is going to happen?

Well, what does happen is very funny and includes a lot of physical comedy, most of that related to the bad guys getting what they deserve.

A couple of additional details: Biderman is being investigated by the FBI, and a reclusive mystery man named Macintosh is buying one of the finest houses in town and lots of toys and other fun stuff to fill it with.

There are lessons to be learned here: money is not the most important thing in life. Family and friends are. In fact, people are your friends only if they are still your friends when the money is gone.

Several actors rise above the material: James Rebhorn as Preston's Dad, Tone Loc as Juice, and sometimes Miguel Ferrer as Quigley. Brian Bonsall does a good enough job as Preston, and Rick Ducommun, as chauffeur Henry, convinces me that he is really Preston's friend. Karen Duffy is easy to like as the pretty teller. On the other hand, Michael Lerner (as the bank president) is never anything more than a cartoon character, and Debbie Allen as party planner Yvonne doesn't seem up to her usual standards.

On My 48, I saw some obvious signs that language had been cleaned up, but not really anything that should make this film inappropriate for most children. Butch (who is a bully) is manhandled by the bad guys and even dangled off a tall building. And the bad guys do threaten others convincingly, but this is still little more than a live-action cartoon. It's really up to individual parents as to whether this is too much.

You don't have to be a kid to like this, but it helps.

Blank Check (1994)

** (out of 4)

Preston Waters (Brian Bonsall) stumbles across a check for one million dollars so obviously he cashes it and begins to live the high life. What he didn't realize is that the check was meant for gangsters and soon they're coming after him.

BLANK CHECK is a decent kids movie that has an obvious set-up and then turns into yet another clone of HOME ALONE. If you're a kid then you can easily connect to the lead in this film and I'm sure young minds will have fun with the idea of getting a blank check and getting to have fun with it buying whatever you want.

The story is a pretty easy set-up and for the most part the film has enough laughs and adventure to where I'm sure kids will enjoy it. As far as the adults watching, there's nothing awful about the picture but there's no question that it lacks any real imagination and the HOME ALONE clone just doesn't have many laughs going for it.

BLANK CHECK is a decent kids film that younger people should enjoy but the adults might be looking at their watches a few times.