The Kid (2000 film)

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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
Distributed by	Buena Vista Pictures
Release date(s)	July 7, 2000
Running time	104 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	USD $65,000,000^[1]
Gross revenue	USD $110,317,580^[1]
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

The Kid is a 2000 American family film directed by Jon Turteltaub and starring Bruce Willis. It co-stars Spencer Breslin, Emily Mortimer, Lily Tomlin, Chi McBride, and Jean Smart.

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Awards and Nominations
4 On TV
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Plot

Russel Duritz (Bruce Willis) works as an image consultant. 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 and Russ asks him to bring pie and 5 white kids, 3 Black and 4 Latino kids. The stadium manager asks Russ why people get so mad about little things. Russ reminds him that he had promised to set aside 5% of the tickets for disadvantaged kids, Russ adds that if he doesn't do anything soon he would end up in jail. They make a video with the children they brought throwing pie at the stadium's manager to heal the damage he had done.

Afterwards, in a Japanese restaurant Amy disagrees and makes Russ throw the tape away, which he does at first, only to change his mind and retrieve it.

When he gets home he sees a shadow, he immediately calls his secretary to change his house security system, to which she replies he is being paranoid and that it could be a neighbor's child. Russ then walks around the house until he finds the kid and begins a chase through the house. They go to the streets and reach the airport where he sees the kid entering a "Skyway Diner;" he tries to catch him there but no one inside has seen the kid. When he walks outside looking for the kid, turns around to look at the dinner he discovers it's vanished and he thinks he is hallucinating.

Russ then goes to a psychologist and tells her that he only needs ten minutes and a powerful medicine to stop his hallucinations. After refusing the whole psychology session he gets his pills and leaves.

He goes home and finds a toy plane with the name Rusty on it, one he had once owned, and concludes it was his dad playing a joke on him. He turns the TV on and watches the news, but after he goes to the kitchen the channel has changed to Cartoon Network. He then surprises the kid in his couch eating his popcorn. He asks the kid who he is and what has he come for, to what the kid replies to take his toy plane, but that when he saw the TV 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 scars and figure out that Rusty is Russ as a kid.

He then starts asking Russ things such as if he has a dog or not, if he has become a pilot and what does he do for a living, to what Russ replies him that he totally can't handle dogs in his house, that he is not a pilot and that he is an image consultant. Rusty tells him that he dislikes his future.

The next day when Amy finds out about the kid, 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 his gym and teaches him to fight in order to take revenge on mean kids.

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, to which she faints.

Later, Russ and Amy talk about who will take care of him during his customer's wedding and Amy proposes to take him but Russ says he will humiliate him. He does, as he falls during the wedding ceremony, then he goes and asks Amy to marry him. She thinks it's Russ sending her the message.

When she finds out Russ saved the tape, she gets mad at him, tells him 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, he remembers that his mother who was sick came to school for him and that when she died his father told him that he was responsible for her death. Russ tells Rusty that his father was nervous because of the huge responsibility of raising a kid alone.

They go to the "Skyway Diner" and keep talking about it. 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 in 30 years Russ would be a pilot, have a wife (Amy) and a dog named Chester. Then Russ returns to his time, buys tickets to Hawaii for his secretary, and goes to Amy's house with a dog. The movie ends as she invites him in.

[edit] Cast

Bruce Willis as Russ Duritz
Spencer Breslin as Rusty Duritz
Emily Mortimer as Amy
Lily Tomlin as Janet
Chi McBride as Kenny
Jean Smart as Deidre Lefever
Dana Ivey as Dr. Suzanne Alexander
Brian McGregor as Vince
Reiley McClendon as Mark
Brian Tebbits as Herbert
Brian McLaughlin as George
Steve Tom as Bruce, Lawyer
Larry King as Himself
Jeri Ryan as Herself
Nick Chinlund as Himself

[edit] Awards and Nominations

The Kid was nominated for one Saturn Award, and two Young Artist Awards, receiving only one Young Artist Award:^[2]

Group	Award	Won?
The Saturn Awards (2001)	Best Performance by a Younger Actor Spencer Breslin	No
Young Artist Awards (2001)	Best Performance in a Feature Film - Young Actor Age Ten or Under Spencer Breslin	Yes
Young Artist Awards (2001)	Best Family Feature Film - Comedy	No

[edit] On TV

On cable, after Disney Channel showed Disney's The Kid only once on Saturday, August 9, 2003 at 8PM/7C, it took 4 years for the film to have its next cable airing. It moved to Hallmark Channel on Saturday, March 31, 2007 at 9PM/8C, and has been aired on Disney Channel's sister station, ABC Family on Sunday, November 4, 2007 at 1:30PM/12:30C. This makes Disney's The Kid one of Disney Channel's longest preempted films in network history. But as requested, on June 23, 2008, if necessary, Disney Channel, which hasn't aired Disney's The Kid as of 2008, may finally have a 2nd airing of the 2000 film, so long if it's not preempted like Little Secrets and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants were. 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.