O Contrabandista de PEZ

Perhaps, like me, you have only a small brush with PEZ from your youth. Being in my early 60's I fondly remember the PEZ candy dispenser as being the big point of interest as the candy was rather sweet but hardly memorable on its own. Is almost anything collectible? Some things more than others apparently and PEZ dispensers grew through years as collectible toys for a certain subset of folks. Enter one curmudgeon type of a OCD guy. One who battles his own inner demons of depression named Steve. Steve becomes infatuated with PEZ while becoming a burgeoning seller of dispensers at toy shows. This leads to something only a certain kind of OCD person might segue to. That is finding the real source of these things and that leads to Eastern Europe.

You see there is a disconnect between the European branch of PEZ and the U. S. branch. They are separate with the European PEZ founders controlling everything but the U. S. market. It might be said the U. S. company was lazy and content to just kind of exist modestly. They didn't bring in many new and exciting designs nixing most of the European's designs. Of course whenever something isn't available it becomes desirable and those Euro designs would fetch very high prices whenever the few were traded among collectors in the U. S.. While I wouldn't call Steve a Wharton Business School whiz I will give him credit for figuring out how to supply the collector's demand. I'd say he did it brilliantly as he was able to import through a loop-hole the U. S. PEZ company created themselves. Of course "Pezident" Scott of the U. S. PEZ company was irate. Battle lines would be drawn and not in the usual courtrooms where U. S. PEZ was hamstrung. Maybe a bit of international intrigue too?

This is a very well put-together documentary about a sublime little known tug-of-war between an individual and a corporation. The corporation's short sightedness and sheer greed made it lazy. It actually did not meet the market it sold its wares in literally opening up a cottage industry one man would come to dominate. In the end, the corporation does what corporations do: starve their competitors out of business through all possible manipulations. Even so PEZ USA has egg all over them and Steve comes out as a sort of hero standing up against long odds far longer than most folks could have. And he's left with this great story which is somewhat heartwarming even. From now on whenever I see a PEZ dispenser I'll think of Steve first and foremost. That's a win.

How good was it? Well, in over 10 years of watching documentaries on Netflix, this is the FIRST time ever that I purposely made the effort to find out how I could rate this and put in a review to highlight how good of a production and story this is, and I came to imdb to do it. To learn about this story was amazing. The mystery, the secrets, the adventure, the thrill, the business war, the whole part about the U. S. and International markets and bringing things over from overseas through customs, the new venture that you get so excited about... and the surprising outcome...wow, what an incredible story. You seriously have to watch this excellent documentary. I would love to see this again. Going to share it on social media now!

Great story and film. Historical scenes were well recreated and interviews were incisive. A lot of depth was developed among the main character. Very fun to see the main character playing himself. Film, however, was a bit long.

On the surface, the story of the Pez Outlaw is interesting at the very least but by no means life changing to the average viewer. The impressive thing to me, however, is that the documentarians took this story and absolutely turned it into a masterclass of creating an engaging documentary. The whole time I was completely engaged with the story by the sheer quality of storytelling that was taking place. Although the stakes were not high at all, I was worried about what would happen next to the protagonist Steve Glew. I laughed out loud multiple times and was mesmerized by the cinematography and stock footage.

Love Pez who didn't when you was a kid but had no idea about this story. What a light hearted very entertaining re-production of this warming tale that not only stroked the chords for a plan of a master outlaw but also the importance of family at the end of it all.

The main character Steve is a quirky kook who is worth the documentary on its own. The angle of the documentary shows just how simple it was many moons ago to arbitrage the supply chain of global markets. Similar things happen today on such a smaller time scale online but back in the Wild West (in this case Eastern Europe to America) these opportunities, and greed of man would stay open a lot longer !

Sweet to the core, had to share the review just to express how much I rather enjoyed it.