User reviews

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.

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.

Jetting to Australia on a business trip, Coca-Cola marketing expert Eric Roberts (as A. Becker) has trouble finding an American newspaper and tries to fend off advances from sexy secretary Greta Scacchi (as Terri). She wants to have sex with Mr. Roberts desperately - and won't take "no" for an answer. His mind is more on how to get her tenacious father, eccentric cola producer Bill Kerr (as T. George McDowell), to realize "Coke is it!" The locals have been strangely alienated from America's favorite soft drink. Roberts is famous for tripling Coke intake, but the small Australian community doesn't partake...

Dusan Makavejev directs this stylish, but disconnected satire. It seems off-track by the time Roberts attends a gender-bending outing; possibly, this is Ms. Scacchi further testing his sexual availability. She and scene-stealing little Rebecca Smart (as Rebecca aka "DMZ") have a show-stopping nude shower scene; maybe this is to be taken as the pause that refreshes. David Slingsby does well as a fawning waiter who mistakes Roberts for a CIA agent. The original power pop Coca-Cola jingle written by Tim Finn (of Split Enz) is excellent. Absurdity is the rule of thumb, and Roberts' mannequin-like performance fits.

****** The Coca-Cola Kid (5/85) Dusan Makavejev ~ Eric Roberts, Greta Scacchi, Bill Kerr, David Slingsby

I started watching The Coca-Cola Kid with the assumption that it would be like other Australian comedies I have seen in which a gung-ho businessman of some sort wants to change a rather dogmatic, traditional industrialist like 'Spotswood' or, in reference to homeowners, 'The Castle.'

And true, that is the initial plot in 'The Coca-Cola Kid.' Eric Roberts plays an efficient Southern businessman who plays a key role for the Australian marketing department for the Australian headquarters for the Coca-Cola Company. While trying to assess the markets and potential successful marketing ploys, he learns that there is a large portion of a rural section of Australia that has no Coca-Cola distribution whatsoever and he wants to know why.

Enter lovable and genuine old-timer, T. George McDowell, who has his own successful and self-sufficient coke company which monopolizes the area. It is the last of its kind and Becker, who cannot simply fathom any section of the world that has no option of Coca-Cola beverages (he even goes so far to say that freedom cannot be established without global presence of Coca-Cola) intends to compete with McDowell. But, McDowell, used to the frequent visits from Coca-Cola marketing executives who try to make deals (and offer to buy him out?), figures that Becker is another lightweight (at least, initially) and is not ready to give in without a fight. This is essentially the crux of the story, the global company versus the independent.

But, the movie takes both an odd and confusing turn at about the time that Becker tries to rain on Mr. McDowell's parade when he shows up at the Rotary Dance with Santa's offering the audience free samples of Coca-Cola. Because, this is about the same time that the story shifts it focus from the main plot to the subplot involving Becker and his eccentric former secretary (played by Gretta Scacchi). Although, I can understand that this is no less essential to the story because Becker, in his involvement with the secretary, is finally pulled from his impersonal role as marketing executive and forced to eventually take on a more humanistic role. But getting there was so weird, and this is especially evident from the sequences where Becker gets drunk and shows up at the drag queen club. And, it is probably Becker's exceedingly weird emptiness that creates such an odd atmosphere and, at least for me, some of the confusion. I don't know if this is how we are supposed to view Becker, or if Eric Robert's strange performance just leads to this.

Nonetheless, after slagging through this rather strange and abrupt shift in mood and, eventually, focus, the rest of the film pulls through rather nicely with a somewhat humorous (especially the events involving the hotel bellhop who is convinced that Becker is in the CIA) and ultimately sad ending that makes Becker rethink his situation. The filmmakers offer both a mix of the happy ending and not-so-happy ending (you have to watch it to see what I mean).

A pleasant, but unusual Aussie comedy/drama that may be worth your time if you can find it. Just don't go into it with the expectations that it is yet another steadily simple narrative or a typical feel-good Australian comedy.

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.

In some ways "The Coca Cola Kid" may be the weirdest movie famously bizarre Serbian filmmaker Dusan Makavejev ever made.

At least with his most out there material such as "WR:Secrets of the Organism" and "Sweet Movie", there was a sense that a sure hand was behind all the strangeness on screen. Even if you didn't get it you knew it meant something or had some purpose.

The Coca Cola Kid is a movie without purpose. It is one of those obscure '80s movies that assumes a left-field plot guarantees a worthwhile story. It doesn't.

What amazes me is that a filmmaker with such an indelible style as Makavejev was responsible for this yawn-fest. Any filmmaker could have made it.

The film stars Eric Roberts as an eccentric, unknowable executive of the Coca Cola company who wants to find out why a town in Australia doesn't use Coke products. So he travels all the way from America to the bush to solve this life altering mystery. There he meets a young lady played by Greta Scacchi who wanders through the movie like a dense Susan Sarandon. She has a daughter played by a pretty bad child actress, and they have a weird bathing scene together which is probably the only reason anyone today would watch this mess.

I didn't care at all about anything that happens in this movie. I didn't care about the characters, and some of the comedic subplots or side characters were just boring and stupid, like the hotel busboy who is convinced that the Eric Roberts character is really a secret agent for no reason other than the movie needed comic relief in those scenes. If you are going to have a buffoonish character who the audience should laugh at, it helps to actually have some sense of why or how the character arrived at their misunderstanding. Are they crazy, or stupid, or both? The character appears to be neither, so it seems totally forced and unbearable every time he is on screen.

The Coca Cola Kid may be an even bigger mystery than Sweet Movie, but the mystery is not contained in the material, it was there at inception: why did Makavejev make this mess?

I gave this a 7. It'd be a 5 except for one scene midway through the movie that truly captures the essence of "Coca Colonization."

I did a lot of consulting for Coca Cola back in the day, the day just after the New Coke fiasco. Can't say I admire the company all that much, but I do admire the way they tapped into the Zeitgeist of a culture. That one scene I mentioned, midway through the film, it illustrates this brilliantly and rhythmically.

Enjoy!.

This movie really starts strong. We know that Roberts is an Atlanta hotshot sent to Australia to fix Coke's marketing problems. We also know he is an eccentric genius. Roberts' fine acting convinces us of this rather quickly.

Unfortunately, the plot is so flimsy, that whatever fine character development has been achieved, it is negated by voids, inconsistencies, and downright boring film sequences.

Usually, I am a sucker for bold and far out plots. Examples which I am fond of include, "Dark Star," "O.C. & Stiggs," and "Popeye." Coupled with the fact that I must admit that this film was well acted, it surprises even myself that I cannot recommend this film.

The utter breakdown in this movie occurs about midway through the film. All comedy is instantly lost and the film turns dark. Afterwards, the film plods along. The film's attempt to get the comedy rolling again is not successful. More surprises await the viewer and they are darker still.

To be sure, mixing drama with comedy can be a formula for success. However, with this movie, the result is about as successful as "new coke."

At least the jingle by Tim Finn was melodic. Roberts is the his usual inept self. Characters are inconsistent, dull, purposeless. Roberts changes his accent even within one line.

The movie had some funny moments and the start was pretty good. However, they focused more on the romance than the business adventures of the coca cola guru, which was a let down.

The opening titles for The Coca-Cola Kid make it clear that the film is in no way sponsored by Coca-Cola or the Coca-Cola bottling company. Obviously the company felt comfortable enough with the final product to let the film use their name, but it's hardly a glowing picture of the soft drink giant. In The Coca-Cola Kid, Coca-Cola is the face of American Imperialism. When company trouble shooter Becker (Eric Roberts) declares, "The world will not be truly free until Coke is available everywhere," he's speaking without irony. This film, then, is about Becker's attempts to help Coca-Cola colonize Australia, but what starts off as a film of comic promise and originality becomes bogged down in convention and cliché to the point that it's difficult by the final reel to remember what was so appealing at the beginning.

The Coca-Cola Kid fits nicely in the genre of American Corporate Fish Out Of Water tales. If you've seen the delightful Local Hero, for example, you'll know that no matter what kind of tough American goes off to the rural wasteland, he'll change, enlightened by the small town quirks and wisdom he was meant to subvert. That's not really giving anything away in this film, because the last act doesn't play out as you expect. In fact, it hardly plays out at all.

Becker arrives in Australia to help boost lagging sales. It turns out that there's a whole region of the country where no Coke is sold at all. Becker, a former marine with the proverbial "unorthodox way of doing business," discovers that that region is ruled over by T. George McDowell (Bill Kerr) a gruff man of homespun wisdom, but more importantly, homemade soft drinks, made from real fruit. Even though their first encounter is rough, Becker is determined to fight off the advances of his secretary-with-a-secret (Greta Scacchi) and the hotel waiter who mistakes him for an arms dealer to do the job he was sent to do.

Directed by Dusan Makavejev, The Coca-Cola Kid develops a wonderful momentum early on. In fact, the first hour of the film is an absolute gem. Eric Roberts's performance to that point is perfect. His presentation to the bemused Coke officials is comic gold, as he waxes poetic about the fizzy beverage, even holding it up to the light bathing the room in its brown glow. Roberts's early scenes with Scacchi have a nice screwball touch and his interactions with Scacchi's moppet daughter provide a nice depth for the character, hinting at something beyond his intensity. There's a nifty sequence where Becker enlists a studio band to try to come up with the "sound of Australia" where they go through several absurd suggestions before coming up with a truly catchy jingle.

I'm not sure how far it is into the movie, but for me things begin to go south immediately after that recording session. For reasons completely unclear to me, the secretary has Becker invited to a party to catch him in an awkward position. This involves completely random intimations of homosexuality and ends of feeling both forced and pointless. The scene is so clumsy that it leaves a bad taste that begins to spread.

It rapidly becomes clear that The Coca-Cola Kid isn't going to omit a single convention of Australian culture. You want an old bushman with a diggerydoo (inevitably misspelled, but my dictionary is letting me down)? You've got it. An adorable wounded Kangaroo? Bingo! And a slightly inbred man singing a rousing chorus of "Walzing Matilda?" Yup-Yup. In fact, the vision of Australia put forth by the film is so cookie-cutter that it's hard to feel bad about the culture being overrun by American interests. You support Coke because you figure they're at least putting forth a good product.

Eric Roberts's performance finally ends up being a little infuriating because he's not given any opportunity or reason to be anything other than amusingly scary. The film falls apart at just the point you wish Roberts would go through the obligatory character alteration, but there's just no chance. He's stranded. Ditto Scacchi. She adorable and makes the sexiest Santa in the history of cinema, but her character's payoff is weak. Bill Kerr is excellent for the most part, but you can't help but feel that his cagey old Outback Vet is a character we've seen a thousand times.

The Coca-Cola Kid's best and most consistent feature is its cinematography by Dean Semler. The Oscar winner (for Dances With Wolves) does what the script and director can't do -- he creates the ironic counterpoint between the Outback, the big city, and Eric Roberts. The film has a dynamic look which, unlike the narrative, doesn't fall apart at the end.

I do feel bad about only giving this movie a 6/10, but I guess I should have just turned it off early. Off to drink a Coke...

This is a marginal movie, easily forgettable among a large string of low budget movies trying to cash in on the early American interest in Australia in the mid-1980's. If it has a true failing, it is in being considered a comedy, which I feel it isn't. It is closer to a drama, a story of a supremely confident man being thrust into a world he has no real understanding of.

The acting is actually quite good, and the odd little twists that his journey takes are truly enjoyable, but it gets bogged down in clashes of dueling pride, of a lack of even the most minimal attempts to understand the Australian culture, and a penchant for using nudity to move the movie along. There are numerous questionable characters, people that seem to be in the movie simply to provide a momentary diversion from a real plot. It does manage to steer around several bits of stereotyping, such as presenting an Aborigine musician who never flinches at being patronized, even flippantly handing over a business card advertising his services.

The visuals are wonderful, including one of the most spectacular sunrise shots across the Outback. The movie does a wonderful job of showing bits of the mixture that Australia is, including a roving patrolman riding a camel, and trying to address the great question - "What is the pure Australian experience?". If they had found a way to fill the movie with more of these moments, it might have been far better.

I'd recommend this movie for one of those nights when nothing else seems right. It's a decent time passer, but shouldn't be taken too seriously.

You've seen it many times before: High powered executive who believes that business is the universal language goes to quaint foreign country (Australia) intent on destroying the local culture in the name of profits. After he meets the bosses daughter and interacts with the culture on a one to one basis, he has a change of heart and finds out the things that make life "real". Pretty ho-hum, but Greta Scacchi turns in such an endearing performance as the daughter that this movie is almost worth watching (her body is definitely worth watching).

It's... strange. Gets almost surreal in the end. But I tell you what, that aussie Coca- Cola song is catchy as hell.

Moments for me in the film -

• Mother and daughter showering together - I don't think I have seen anything like that anywhere. I don't think you can even shoot something like that nowadays.

• McDowel shooting the American kid while the jungle noises intensify.

• The weird train-trucks at McDowel factory.

• Landing of the crop duster on an outback road.

And of course the Aussie Coca-Cola song.

I must mention that I have not had a soft drink in the last 10 years or so and no one in family does either.

The director of WR: Mysteries of the Organism and Sweet Movie made this Australian-based film starring Eric Roberts as a goofy Coca-Cola marketing man. He's trying to get larger market saturation in Australia, especially a certain area where another soft drink, made by Bill Kerr, is the only one available. This film is downright weird, although, as it moves on, it becomes more formulaic. But the weirdness dominates the film, and, damn, is it amusing. Sure, it's not entirely coherent, but it's pretty hilarious. This might be Eric Roberts' finest role. He's just awesome in it, too. Kerr is also wonderful. The highlight of the film, though, is probably Greta Scacchi, who is both funny and gorgeous as the crazy chick trying to win Roberts' affection.

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.

Just finished watching this movie and it was a very nice and pleasant movies. Eric Roberts lights up the screen with his performance as he dominates his time on screen. The movie is short and yet taut with good pacing and even though it is a rehash of many films it has a freshness due to the interesting locations and the ambiance of the surroundings. Greta Scacchi is simply stunning and she just has a nice aura about her on screen. The description that Eric Roberts uses to describe the coca cola product is very good and made me grab on and i just liked this movie a lot it does not take itself too seriously and it is fun entertainment.

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 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.

A film more remembered for Greta Scacchi than Eric Roberts. The Coca Cola salesman discovers that not everything goes with Coke. A very pleasant way to spend a couple of hours and if it comes your way, be sure and catch it. It will be worth the time!!

American capitalistic imperialism satirized. Both well and truly. Eric Roberts (whatever happend to him?) has never been to possessed as the marketing hotshot from Coca-Cola's Atlanta hq, in Australia to sell the last no-Coca-Cola bastion on earth on the drink's "bubbling brown goodness." And Greta Saachi (hubba-hubba) has never been so fetching or as funny. Watch for the unnerving news provided just before the credits.