Coca-Cola Kid

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.

Dusan Makavejev is a director I admire. Much of his product is completely bonkers. He was never interested in making staid movies or anything generic. He always went for the gusto. It was as if anything could happen in one of his films. If he had been given the reign to direct remakes of any films he would have completely changed everything. I could imagine what he could have done with, say, the remakes of the Steve Martin/Diane Keaton/Martin Short "Father Of The Bride" movies.

The Coca-Cola Kid is his most well-known work. The film features Eric Roberts as a whiz kid named Becker who has been sent by Coca-Cola to find out why Coke isn't making any money in the Outback region of Australia. It turns out that a Mom-And-Pop company run by T. George McDowell (Bill Kerr) that has dominated the area. Becker then does whatever he can to buy McDowell out. In the meantime, he strikes up an interesting affair with McDowell's secretary Terri (Greta Scacchi), a single mother who has some ties to Kerr's operations.

Much like any Makavejev film, there are some extremely off-the-wall moments. The bedroom scene with the feathers, the drag queen party, the Santa Claus parade and the infamous shower scene where mother and daughter wash up together are some of the crazy things you'll see. Eventually, the movie does lose its focus in favour of its "Crash T.V." content. Still, the movie has some good acting, Scacchi offers up great eye candy and it is truly wacky; even if isn't uproariously funny. It's just so out there. If you want to see Makavejev's unique vision translated on film this should be your first viewing. Montenegro and WR are others worth checking out.

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.

Makavejev's recipe for finally making some money. And it works! This is in the same time his worst and most famous movie. The stupid Hollywood comedy part and casting attracts random public and secures watchability for everyone, and the other art part was fun to make in his own surrealist style and observe the reactions, including the one from the coca cola company. How did a Serbian avanguard director get to organize such a team and set (action star Eric Roberts as an American marketing guru sent to Australia) remains a funny mystery to me. Every Makavejev movie is completely different so even here it was hard to imagine where will the movie go, this is the first one that made me laugh. Eric is actually very good, Greta Scacchi even better(!), and i also liked the guy with pipe, all the acting is decent, but i think the real star is the little girl (Rebecca Smart), she's just brilliant. So this is basically a crossroad: if you liked the part that made "no" sense google Makavejev, otherwise keep with Eric Roberts.

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."