Coca-Cola Kid

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 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.

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.

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.