The Coca-Cola Kid

Washington Post by

The Coca-Cola Kid starts out as a lively satire of American business, posing a young Harvard MBA as a pin-striped cowboy attempting to claim a piece of the Australian outback for Coca-Cola. But Yugoslavian director Dusan Makavejev, like a ham-handed juggler in a high wind, thwarts his promising idea by tossing up a jumble of plot detours and subplots that never come down. [30 Aug 1985, p.B1]

Chicago Reader by Dave Kehr

Makavejev's ripping political/scatological wit isn't much in evidence, and the long middle section—involving Roberts's efforts to close down independent bottler Bill Kerr—is soggy and too familiar, but the film lives in a hundred different eccentric details and niceties of execution.

The New York Times by Janet Maslin

The Coca-Cola Kid is of more interest for these oddball peripheral touches than for its awkward attempts at satire.

Washington Post by Rita Kempley

It claims to offer a new formula for comedy, but a lot of filmgoers will probably prefer the classic kind. [30 Aug 1985, p.N23]

Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

The movie has so many other delights, though, that it's fun anyway. Maybe it wasn't exactly intended to be a love story.

Los Angeles Times by Sheila Benson

A dippy, joyous meander of a movie, more than a little messy but abundantly rewarding.