The Coca-Cola Kid

The ugly American bullying his way through a foreign country was a subject for comedy in several films of the 1980s, most notably Bill Forsyth 's Local Hero and this film from exiled Yugoslavian director Dusan Makavejev . Eric Roberts plays Becker, an aggressive marketing executive for the Coca-Cola Company; he has been assigned to figure out why sales in hot and dry Australia aren't higher. Becker comes up against a low-key but formidable adversary, T. George McDowell ( Bill Kerr ), whose homegrown soda has cornered the market in his little corner of the country. Complicating matters is Terri, a local woman ( Greta Scacchi ) Becker hires as his secretary; she's McDowell's daughter and a single mom who's romantically attracted to the brash American. Becker wants to make a deal on his (and his employer's) terms, but he finds himself falling prey to the charms of life Down Under and the ministrations of Terri. — Tom Wiener