Coca-Cola Kid

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.

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.

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.

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 film is not without flaws. It is quirky at times, to the point of being disorienting. But it is dotted with poignant moments so profound that I am thoroughly inclined to forgive its minor problems. Eric Roberts is enigmatic, while still being sympathetic. It is an interesting course of development that in the beginning of the film, he is the strangest thing we see and by the end, we find him overwhelmed by the strangeness and complexity of the world he has entered. And in the end, the filmmaker takes perhaps the boldest risk of all, which is to end a film of unrelenting madness, with a simple romantic tie-up (and a strange quip about the end of the world, but whatever...) The comedy works, the characters are appealing, the message is simple yet profound and the music (by the brothers Finn and other ex-members of the Split Enz) is outstanding. What more could you ask for in a movie?