The Coca-Cola Kid

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.

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 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?

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.