Blank Check MPAA Rating: PG Entertainment: +2 Content: -1/2

BLANK CHECK has all sorts of gimmicks, action and comedy which young people will go for. They'll also go for the lead character, likeable 11-year-old Preston Waters played by Brian Bonsall. Preston isn't happy because he can't afford all the fun things his friends do. All this changes when a wealthy crook, Carl Quigley (Miguel Ferrer), mistakenly gives Preston a blank check. Preston fills in the check for one million dollars and goes on a wild spending spree. He buys an expensive mansion and fills it with glitzy, expensive recreational games and equipment. He hires a chauffeur who helps him enjoy his new found riches. Preston also acquires a girlfriend, Shay Stanley (Karen Duffy), an attractive bank teller much older than he. But they're just good friends as she has some more important motives. The fun ends when Quigley and two cohorts come after Preston to get their money back. All the fun and mayhem leads to a major confrontation at an elaborate birthday party Preston throws for himself. BLANK CHECK is a fast moving, clever comedy with lots of action and some pathos, too.

Preston spends money which doesn't belong to him and deceives everybody about his mysterious wealth, including his family. Ultimately, though, he sees the folly of his ways and recognizes he really has all he needs in his loving, but exasperating, family. Even his strict dad admits that he is too demanding of Preston and needs a better relationship with him. Although Preston's attraction to Shay is infatuation, it does have a slightly suggestive tinge to it. Unfortunately, Preston indulges in some gratuitous battering of Quigley and his two cohorts. In particular, he gleefully propels tennis balls at one of them, striking him painfully in the genitals. He also rolls Quigley around in a large metal sphere with his go cart and subjects another crook to an intense virtual reality experience. The chauffeur gives a humorous, but crude description of skinning a cat and makes some mildly suggestive remarks about women. The dialogue has only a few mild and moderate crudities and there are no sexual incidents in the story. Only the excessive battering of the crooks, much like that in the HOME ALONE movies, significantly mars this fun filled caper.

Preview Reviewer: John Evans
Distributor: Buena Vista Distributing Co., 3900 W. Alameda Ave., Burbank, CA 91521