Blank Check

Eleven-year-old Preston (Brian Bonsall of TV's "Family Ties") is the sad sack of his family, bullied by his two older brothers and patronized by his parents. That all changes, however, when he's mistaken for the bagman for big-time gangster Quigley (Miguel Ferrer) and makes off with a million dollars. The confusion comes about when Quigley writes a check to pay for Preston's bike, which he accidentally ran over in a parking lot. In his haste to get away from an approaching patrol car, Quigley neglects to fill in the amount. The check is drawn on a phony account Quigley has set up to launder stolen bills through crooked banker Biderman (Michael Lerner). With his new-found wealth, Preston hires a chauffeur (Rick Ducommun), buys a house, and fills it with goodies, creating an adult alter-ego to cover for his underage status. Meanwhile, an irate Quigley, along with Biderman and Quigley's dimwitted muscle man Juice (Tone Loc), frantically try to track Preston down. Also taking an interest is cute bank teller Shay (MTV personality Karen Duffy), actually an F.B.I. agent on the trail of Quigley's stolen cash. To impress Shay, Preston hires a spendthrift party planner (Debbie Allen) to throw a birthday bash for Preston's alter-ego. Discovering he doesn't have enough money left to pay her, Preston realizes there's no place like home and prepares to return there. First, however, he has to turn the tables on Quigley and his goons, who have finally tracked him down, and turn the crooks over to Shay, for which Shay rewards him with his first grown-up kiss.

BLANK CHECK invites comparisons to HOME ALONE, but this movie makes John Hughes look like Preston Sturges. One thing that director Rupert Wainwright, a music video man making his feature debut, might have learned from Hughes is to keep the plot simple; here, the ramshackle, overly complex story line wastes time and energy tying up loose ends, usually only succeeding in creating more loose ends. But even simple camera continuity seems beyond Wainwright and his crew. In one scene, Shay's inexplicably wearing sneakers in half the shots and pumps in the other half. More objectionable than mere lapses in craft and continuity, however, is that BLANK CHECK marks a new low in profligate product placements. Though the plugs are pretty much unrelenting from start to finish, a major chunk of BLANK CHECK is devoted solely to fat close-ups of trademarks, mostly on items being carted into Preston's mansion. He even names his alter-ego after a popular computer, which means the machine gets a plug virtually every time Preston opens his mouth. The slapstick is slapdash at best--even the requisite car crashes are yawn-inducing--and the characters are as boring and unengaging as they are dimwitted. Despite its Disney imprimatur, the whole movie has the smeary look and vaguely exhausted feeling of a direct-to-video quickie. leave a comment