Disney's The Kid

The Kid
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Jon Turteltaub
Produced by	Hunt Lowry Arnold Rifkin Christina Steinberg Jon Turteltaub David Willis
Written by	Audrey Wells
Starring	Bruce Willis Spencer Breslin Emily Mortimer Lily Tomlin Chi McBride
Music by	Marc Shaiman Jason White
Cinematography	Peter Menzies Jr.
Editing by	Peter Honess David Rennie
Studio	Walt Disney Pictures
Distributed by	Buena Vista Pictures
Release dates	July 7, 2000
Running time	104 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$65,000,000[1]
Box office	$110,317,580

Disney's The Kid is a 2000 American film, directed by Jon Turteltaub and starring Bruce Willis and Spencer Breslin. It co-stars Emily Mortimer, Lily Tomlin, Chi McBride, and Jean Smart. The movie was released on July 7 in United States and received mixed to positive reviews from critics.

Plot

Russ Duritz works as an image consultant, but he is impolite to people and has a strained relationship with his father. One day, he sees a red plane flying over his head but no one else seems to have seen it.

Later, he and his assistant Amy meet a stadium manager named Bob Riley. Riley had promised to set aside 5% of the ticket sales to fund a baseball camp for disadvantaged children, but he actually kept the money. So Russ has them make a video of some children throwing pie at Riley, to get him off the hook. Afterwards, in a Japanese restaurant Amy feels that the video is unethical, and Russ throws the tape away at first, but he secretly retrieves it offscreen.

When Russ gets home he sees a shadow of a boy, and he immediately calls his secretary Janet to change his house security system. She replies that he is being paranoid and that it could be a neighbor's child. He hears someone inside his house and gets out of bed to investigate when he finds a toy plane with the name Rusty on it on his front step which he assumes had been left there by his father for him. Russ goes back to bed and wakes up hearing noises again. He then walks around the house until he finds the boy and begins a chase through the house. They go to the streets and reach the airport where he sees the boy entering a "Skyway Diner". He tries to catch him there but no one inside has seen the boy. When Russ walks outside looking for the boy, he turns around to look back at the diner, but it has vanished. He thinks he is hallucinating again.

The next day Russ goes to a psychiatrist and tells her that he only needs five minutes and a powerful medicine to stop his hallucinations. After refusing the whole psychology session he gets his pills and leaves. He turns the television on and watches the news, but after he goes to the kitchen the channel has changed to Ed, Edd n Eddy. He then surprises the boy in his couch eating his popcorn. He asks the boy who he is and what has he come for, to which the boy replies to take his toy plane, but that when he saw the television and the popcorn he couldn't resist. Russ then asks the boy his name and finds out it's his own. Both begin comparing memories and their birthmarks and figure out that Rusty is none other than Russ as a kid.

Rusty then starts asking Russ things such as if he has a dog named Chester, whom Rusty has dreamed of owning, if he has become a pilot, and if Russ has a wife. Russ replies that he can't handle dogs with his constant traveling, that he is not a pilot but an image consultant, and that has no wife. Rusty tells him that he dislikes his future. The next day, when Amy finds out about the boy, she likes him and wants to take him to eat ice cream but Russ makes fun of his weight. Rusty then recalls some bullies bothering him the same way, so Russ brings him to a client's boxing ring and teaches him to fight.

Amy starts wondering about Russ and Rusty's similarities and begins to think they are father and son. After shouting at Russ for hiding such a secret from her, both Russ and Rusty finally decide to tell her the truth, though they end up arguing instead. Amy watches Rusty and Russ argue and sees the two fighting, arguing, gesturing the same way, at which she faints. Later, Russ and Amy talk about who will take care of him during his client's wedding and Amy proposes to take him but Russ says he will humiliate him. Rusty falls during the wedding ceremony, and at the reception, he asks Amy to marry him. She thinks it's Russ sending her the message.

When she finds out that Russ saved and aired the Riley tape, she gets mad at him. She tells him that he should try to learn more from Rusty and leaves disappointed. Russ finally decides to cancel all of his appointments and spend an afternoon trying to find out why Rusty is there and what he needs to fix from the past. He recalls a fight he will have on his birthday. That makes them go back to 1968.

Rusty wins that fight and saves the life of a three-legged dog called Tripod, but then Russ remembers that that wasn't the worst part of the day. He remembers that his mother who was sick came to school for him. When they get home, Rusty's father angrily goes to Russ saying "Are you trying to kill her faster?!" Rusty cries and his father rubs Rusty's eyes painfully causing Rusty to have a lifelong facial tic. Russ tells Rusty that his mother will die before his next birthday, then comforts him. Russ tells Rusty that his father was angry and scared because of the huge responsibility of raising a boy alone.

They go to the "Skyway Diner" and keep talking about the fight, congratulating each other on their birthday. Suddenly a dog comes in and goes directly to Rusty. They hear a man call the dog Chester, they both follow him and find out that the red plane is Russ's plane and that the man with the dog is Russ and that they really changed the future and that Russ would, in late middle age, be a pilot, have Amy as his wife and mother of his children, and a dog named Chester. Then Russ returns to his time, arranges plans to see his dad, buys tickets to Hawaii for Janet, and goes to Amy's house with a puppy. The movie ends as she invites him in.

Cast

• Bruce Willis as Russ Duritz
• Spencer Breslin as Rusty Duritz
• Emily Mortimer as Amy
• Lily Tomlin as Janet
• Chi McBride as Kenny
• Juanita Moore as Kenny's Grandmother
• Jean Smart as Deidre Lefever
• Dana Ivey as Dr. Suzanne Alexander
• Reiley McClendon as Mark
• Steve Tom as Bruce, the Lawyer
• Larry King as himself
• Jeri Ryan as herself
• Nick Chinlund as himself
• Matthew Perry as Mr. Vivian (uncredited)
• Daniel von Bargen as Sam Duritz
• Melissa McCarthy as Sky Diner Waitress
• Elizabeth Arlen as Gloria Duritz
• Zach Redo as James
• Brian McGregor as Vince
• Brian Tebbits as Herbert
• Brian McLaughlin as George

Box office

The film opened at #4 at the North American box office making $12,687,726 USD in its opening weekend behind The Patriot, The Perfect Storm and Scary Movie.

Release

Critical Reception

Upon its release, Disney's The Kid received mixed to positive reviews from critics. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes calculated a 49% overall approval based on 97 reviews, with the consensus being, "Critics find The Kid to be too sweet and the movie's message to be annoyingly simplistic."^[2] It has a rating of 45% on Metacritic.^[3] Film critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave a positive review, awarding the movie 3 stars out of 4 and observing, "Disney's The Kid is warm-hearted and effective, a sweet little parable that involves a man and a boy who help each other become a better boy, and a better man. It's a sweet film, unexpectedly involving, and shows again that Willis, so easily identified with action movies, is gifted in the areas of comedy and pathos: This is a cornball plot, and he lends it credibility just by being in it."^[4]

Awards and nominations

The Kid was nominated for one Saturn Award, and two Young Artist Awards, receiving only one Young Artist Award:^[5]

Television

On cable, after Disney Channel showed Disney's The Kid only once on Saturday, August 9, 2003, it took 4 years for the film to have its next cable airing. It aired on Hallmark Channel on Saturday, March 31, 2007 and has been aired on Disney Channel's sister station, ABC Family on Sunday, November 4, 2007. This makes Disney's The Kid one of Disney Channel's longest preempted films in network history. On June 23, 2008, Disney Channel, which hasn't aired Disney's The Kid as of 2008, would have had a 2nd airing, but was preempted like Little Secrets and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants were. But in a seminar held on July 11, 2008, it was announced that Disney Channel will air Disney's The Kid for the second time, and possibly, the third. In 2008, they started to show it on Disney Cinemagic, but the Encore channels have played the movie several times. However, Disney Channel Asia continues to show the film occasionally. Hallmark Movie Channel currently airs the movie. In India, the movie is often telecast on the channel Zee Studio.

See Also

Looper (film)

References

External links

• The Kid at the Internet Movie Database
• The Kid at allmovie
• The Kid at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Kid at Metacritic
• The Kid at Box Office Mojo