Coca-Cola Kid

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."

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.

This tale of an American marketing guru sent to improve Coke's sales in Australia was mildly enjoyable. It's certainly not the worst film ever made, but the main character, played by Eric Roberts, is more than slightly over the top, to the point of being obnoxious, in fact, pretty unlikeable. Still, with some mild intrigue and a blooming romance, the movie will hold your attention just to find out what happens.

As to the nasty little fact ruining a good theory: I'd previously held that directors, especially Europeans, invariable fail when they attempt to address economic and social concepts via sex and violence. It's a theory supported by several of Jodorowsky's films, and by this director, Dusan Makavajev's, epic failures "W.R. Mysteries of the Organism" and "Sweet Movie." These films support their moderately valid theses in ways as insubstantial and juvenile as the old Chi-com propaganda comic books that attempted to rationalize the downfall of the Gang of Four.

But with "The Coca Cola Kid", Makavajev succeeds -- with less violence, and a lot less sex -- most likely because he addresses only one slice of the theoretical pie, and because he delivers a more coherent, standard narrative flow. He directed but didn't write it, of course. This dramatization of global corporate dominance was filmed while WalMart was only in the early stages of eradicating mom and pop, and while Google, Amazon, and Facebook were just leftists' vague nightmares. Any system, economic or otherwise, that lacks negative feedback will veer out of control, and the Kid personifies the attitude that lets it happen.

As often happens on Amazon Video, this R-rated film is censored; most of the shower scene with Terri and her daughter -- and the accompanying dialog -- has been deleted.

It's a film worth seeing once.

Call me strange, call me tasteless, but I found this film to be one of those movies that haunts me. Eric Roberts as the gung-ho Coke executive out to undo T.George McDowell's stranglehold on outback softdrink sales is just amazing. The scene near the beginning where Roberts is scanning an electronic map showing per capita Coke sales throughout Australia is brilliant, especially as they get down into the outback areas and discover that not only are Coke sales slim, but in one area, utterly non-existent.

Roberts' growing relationship with Greta Sciacci's character and DMZ, played wonderfully by child actress Rebecca Smart, weaves a romantic thread throughout the film, touching us even as we feel the intense need to thwap him over the head and make him see that this is the woman for him.

The scene of Coke trucks driven by Santa Claus costumed drivers pouring into T. George's compound is a killer, especially with that jingle (Sung by Neil Finn of Crowded House fame) roaring in the background. I can't understand why Coke has not purchased the rights to this jingle and used it in its advertising. Like another reviewer, I can't get that jingle out of my mind, even 15 years after seeing the movie.

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.