Kidco

Young Scott Schwartz and his three sisters create their own manure company in this sleight little film that is a time-passer and nothing more. Living on a horse ranch, they create a really booming business. However the state starts to breathe down their throats when they want taxes paid on the company's profit. A kid's courtroom drama that feels a bit forced and honestly a bit silly in its final act. Not quite a recommendation here, but still a film that is actually better than you might think. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Now here's a film for the capitalist Reagan Eighties. When young Scott Schwartz who is constantly in trouble in school for various schemes to extort money out of them gets in trouble, it's certain he's got the making of a venture capitalist. Schwartz who with his three sisters live on a horse ranch with parents Charles Hallahan and Margaret Blye has noted that there's a byproduct on the ranch that no one is taking advantage of. Which gives him a marvelous idea to go into business after he hears fertilizer manufacturer Clifton James try to holdup country club owner Allan Rich for a bigger price. Kidco becomes the name of their company.

Of course it becomes a big success, but that gets James all mad as the kids of Kidco start taking away his business. And of course James looks to government to solve his problems as Deputy Attorney General Ron Rifkin goes to court.

Rifkin takes the kids to court and hits them with all kinds of violations, sales tax, health code, you name it, Rifkin has a case. Young Mr. Schwartz elects to proceed pro se and at the tender age of 11 does himself Frank Capra proud.

Although Kidco is Capra for the kids, the trial itself and the actions of Judge Benny Baker come straight of Miracle At 34th Street as Judge Baker who is elected gets a few tips about the facts of political life if he rules against the kids who have now become celebrities.

Per the times big government and grownups who take advantage of it are the villains here. Kidco is an amusing enough film for juvenile audiences and I can see it as required viewing in every Republican household with young ones in it.

While I was in first grade at Thornydale Elementary, in Tucson, AZ., the crew from Kidco did a presentation at our school's assembly hall asking for extras. I took the "permission slip" home to my parents and begged them to let me be in the movie. They signed the forms, and we went to a large casting call. I call it a casting call because I don't know what else to call it. I didn't get in the movie, but some of my friends were in the courthouse scene. We all received Kidco t-shirts and felt like we were movie stars (even though most of us were not in the picture.)Looking back, nearly twenty-five years later, this was a fun and interesting event in my life. I saw the film again in the mid-nineties, and enjoyed it. It has some of the same moral thematics as "The Goonies," but presents them in a less fantastic way--or does it?

This is one that I wish I could have seen as a child. As an adult I know just too much of the realities of business to believe everything in the story. But, it was simple enough to toss aside my adulthood and step into my childhood for a while and see the fantasy of this story.

The Cessna children are always hatching schemes to make money, mostly ones that are on left side of legal, but this time they come up with an apparently legal means to fill the bank account. Their father manages a horse ranch and they start mixing the manure with hay to make fertilizer and sell it to, first a golf course, and later other businesses. They do quite well until their competition sics the regulatory agencies and the tax man on them.

The acting isn't always the best, but that only would make it more real for children. I liked this movie, and I suspect that children would also. After all, I don't think its target audience was anyone over the teen years, so I was pleasantly surprised that it was enjoyable to this adult.

KIDCO, which sounds more like a toy manufacturer, expressed some signs of power for its time about getting rich, a major 80s lifestyle theme. The story about selling manure and making big bucks is very unusual, but thought-provoking and imaginative for youths to dream of someday attaining fame and fortune. Unfortunately, that dream becomes a valuable lesson in life when there are trials and drawbacks in operating any kind of business, including lemonade stands, or else eventually getting caught for violating any means of strict regulations. That's the important vital aspect of the film. Targeted at mostly young children, it's too sophisticated and the acting comes up flat, but there is a place in its heart for the fantasy of it all. Talk about an awful lot of kids! A good little film, though ordinary.