Ein schräger Vogel

Beth comes home to find a burglar in her home. During a struggle she kills him and is later cleared of manslaughter. However insurance investigator Roland Copping begins to look into the case looking for fraud. He eventually finds a fraud by Beth's husband Jonathon and begins to blackmail the couple in a game where the stakes continually rise.

This is an Australian comedy - oops! immediate turn off for me. And it stars Phil Collins - double oops. Whenever I see Phil Collins in a film my immediate assumption is that they couldn't get Bob Hoskins. This really needed to do something special to win me over. And for the first half it does - the robbery scenes are good and then Collins uncovering the fraud is very interesting. However the second half is all a bit daft - Collin's living in an unlikely toy-store house with a range of gadgets and Jonathon being drawn into a deadly game. It has it's moments but the second half is a bit silly.

The cast are mixed. Collins is not a great actor and hams it up - however here the film so overdone that his style almost fits.....almost. His childhood is not well enough explored and instead we are treated to fancy sets and fantasy sequences that aren't set in any context. Byrnes is good as the harassed wife but Hugo Weaving is lost with a stretched role where he has to jump from gentle husband to being on the same level as Collins.

Overall the first half is quite interesting - you don't totally know what's going on in every situation. However the second half is a bit silly and Collins loses any believability as a character. It's a little entertaining but the colourful child-like set takes away much of the dark mystery of the first half.

"Frauds" is a well acted, weirdly entertaining sadistic fun house ride. Phil Collins, who quite frankly can quickly wear thin, uses that annoyance to full advantage while putting the squeeze on husband and wife Hugo Weaving and Josephine Byrnes. Insurance fraud leads to blackmail and a living nightmare in the form of insurance investigator, Collins. The most intriguing part of "Frauds" is most definitely Collins's neon lit fun house where he resides. That imaginative set piece drives this film. If only it had concluded in a more satisfying manner. The resolution is indeed the weakest part of an otherwise winning movie. - MERK

By far this is one of my favorite movies. It is so different than the norm that Hollywood puts out. I came across it one morning on one of the movie channels. I watched the last 45 minutes of it, but was so intrigued I had to track down the movie. I finally found a copy on the PAL system, got it and had it transfered over to VHS. This was a few years ago. I wish they would release it on to DVD.

Phil Collins gives a wonderful performance, he needs to do more movies roles. Hugo Weaving is also a delight to watch, it is different to see him in a non-action role. I recommend this movie to anyone who is lucky to come across it.

I had a vague memory of this film from my childhood and it was a lot of fun to revisit it a couple of decades later. It has a bizarre aesthetic and some seriously wooden acting (particularly in the early scenes), but once Phil Collins enters the action, the film hits its sweet spot in the second act before going off the rails towards the end. The characters all make weird, bonehead decisions, which is infuriating because the end product could have been so much better. Still, I enjoyed the brazen bizarreness of it all and for originality alone it scores in the positive. Incidentally you can (at the time of writing this review) watch it for free on YouTube.

Coming across this late at night on ITV1 was quite a find really. I had heard of it, and the idea of Phil Collins as a demented villain did appeal. I really liked the oddball quality of it all, with Collins wonderful as a jovial, buffoonish grinner, treading the line between menace and absurdity in portraying one Roland Copping, who one might call a tad eccentric. The lunacy and non-sequiturs build up very effectively in the middle of the film; perhaps the tone might have been made a little more dark, or perhaps less light, presumably with different, less jaunty music.

Maybe it tails off slightly, but the ending somehow seems to me a gem. The absurdism isn't compromised by a happy ending, it is strengthened by a subtle, fitting conclusion.

I wouldn't say this was a perfect film, but it is damn enjoyable, far from the mainstream and never bland. The sets, by the way, for Copping's house, are fab; just thought I had to add that!

Rating:- *** 1/2/*****