Scherzi maligni

This is weird but wonderful movie that you are going to either love or hate. Phil Collins plays the role of Roland Copping, a creepy twisted insurance assessor with an evil sense of humour, really well. In fact the acting by all is good and would highly recommend you get the popcorn in and enjoy the fun of a movie that threatens to be scarier than it is.

Watched this one not feeling totally sure how well I'd enjoy it. It seemed like a low budget film which may be amusing for a while then fizzle out, but I'm happy to say I was well interested throughout the film.

The first 5-10 minutes felt a little choppy, like a very rough cut of the film trying to show us a noteworthy aspect we should keep in mind and doing it more haphazardly than it means to. Once we're into the "present time" I guess you'd say, the editing levels out. It feels almost like a kid's movie at times, though with a more adult-but-still-a-bit-silly theme about it.

I don't want to sell this as a "silly" movie. It certainly feels a bit silly at moments and has several moments of questionable setups, but it works for the world that's been setup for us. At least, if you're into the film, it works. One does have to let logic go a wee bit to enjoy this film. If you can't do that, this is probably not the film for you.

Phil Collins is delightfully fun in his sleezy role. I haven't seen him on "Miami Vice," but this is very much how I imagine his character on that show to be like. Really all the acting is good in this. Hugo Weaving and Josephine Byrnes are both terrific; I really liked them more as the film went on.

This is the first film of Stephan Elliott's that I have seen, and based on this film, I am interested in seeing more.

I am giving this a 7 because I did enjoy it overall. It's a fun, light film with a dark twinge to it. It's not a deep film, there's not a lot to take away from it, it didn't make me feel anything substantial. It was a good watch though. I would certainly be game to watch this again in the near future.

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.

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.

"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