MOVIE REVIEW : ‘COCA-COLA KID’ SPARKLES WITH A DIPPY, COMIC KICK

The comic mood of “The Coca-Cola Kid” (Friday at Cineplex and Brentwood Twin) is reinforced by a wealth of delicious detail as Eric Roberts, a hot-shot corporate trouble-shooter, invades the warm, laid-back Australian continent on behalf of a certain globally recognized soft drink. The result is a dippy, joyous meander of a movie, more than a little messy but abundantly rewarding.

Who could resist the Southern-born Roberts, whose master’s thesis was titled “Money Is God’s Music” and who speaks about the bubbles in his Coca-Cola with the quiet, evangelical fervor of a true believer?

Not his Australian Coca-Cola confreres . They are somewhat stunned by Roberts’ imperious approach as he arrives to fix problems they never knew they had, but having been warned by corporate telex, they are willing to let this sales whirlwind have his head.

Certainly the gloriously sensual Greta Scacchi can’t resist him. Possibly the most disastrous secretary ever to work for a major corporation, and the most single-minded, Scacchi sets her cap for him at first sight.

Only one mule-stubborn independent bottler, Bill Kerr, seems immune to Roberts’ charm. The controlling might of a nearby town, Kerr will not allow Coke anywhere near the Anderson Valley. As ex-Marine Roberts first reconnoiters the area, Kerr is fishing in a stream next to his quaint, rinky-dink plant. With his flat-brimmed hat, smock and neat gray beard, Kerr is the very image of an Impressionist painter--in everything save his omnipresent rifle.

Frank Moorhouse has adapted the screenplay from his own books, “The Americans, Baby” and “The Electrical Experience.” Not having (yet) read these Australian popular favorites, I still suspect they were particularly suited to the on-the-bias view of life of director Dusan Makavejev (“Sweet Movie,” “Montenegro”). The picture is crammed with very Makavejev-like touches: bizarre, memorable small parts; an open and generous view of the liberating qualities of sex and incidents that seem like character non sequiturs but in truth are character indicators.

Searching for “the Australian sound,” to use on a new Coca-Cola jingle, Roberts hears it in the resonant, thrumming drone coming from an aborigine’s pipe somewhere outside his building. It can be had, the native says, handing him his agent’s card. Next is the band: “Not anti-nuke?” Roberts checks anxiously. Not likely. These are musicians “with sound and no opinions. We play for money.”

(Actually, the Coca-Cola people would do well to listen up to the movie-produced jingle, “Don’ wanna go where there’s no Coca-Cola.” Booming aborigine pipe and all, it’s wonderfully catchy.)

The outcome of this throwaway plot could probably be guessed by the movie’s clever 8-year-old, Rebecca Smart, who plays Scacchi’s forthright daughter, DMZ (so named because she’s the only safe area between warring, divorced parents). What can’t be predicted is the charm of the players, which is enormous; the lovely quirks of character or the spell of the country, which seeps through gently.

One might complain mildly that the film is, ah, fragmented. No argument. A few of the bits seem to be missing--such as necessary details about the wacko waiter at Roberts’ hotel, convinced that the American is CIA and has the power to induct him into it as well. Or greater clarity in Scacchi’s attempt to frame Roberts.

Yet, in Roberts’ low-key portrait of this Scripture-quoting businessman there’s a nicely drawn character. Charm must be the operating emotion, or he’d be insufferable. Roberts underplays his strong Southerner and the result is irresistible. He meets his match in the earthy Scacchi (last seen by Americans in “Heat and Dust”), playing a variation of a ‘60s earth mother. What a glorious force of nature she is!

And there is lovely writing in the character of the forthright bottler, the solitary widower who so admires the qualities of ice.

Those who seek out Makavejev for his pungent political asides may be disappointed--until the film’s closing legend, an astringent, not to say macabre, touch. And very like Makavejev.