Blank Check

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.

Brian Bonsall, Karen Duffy, Miguel Ferrer, James Rebhorn, Jayne Atkinson, Michael Lerner, and Tone Loc star in this great movie about how when a child gets a million dollars nothing is impossible. Preston Waters (Brian Bonsall) has just got his bike totally ruined and received a blank check from the guy who ran over it. When he discovers it's blank he writes in One Million Dollars and gets everything he could ever dream of. When he runs into trouble with everybody he realizes being rich isn't all he expected. The whole family will enjoy this movie.

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.

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.