Bad Eggs

Lately the quality of films coming out of Australia has been dreadful, but this movie has taken the Aussie Film industry to even lower depths.

What a poor film. The acting is dreadful on all accounts with most of the cast looking decidedly disinterested in the whole affair. Is the industry so short of talent that they now have to resort to actors who are totally unsuited for their parts? Mick Molloy as a copper just never washed one little bit for me. The production crew should hang their heads in shame. Most of the scenes have been way too overdone, milked for all they are worth and poorly edited. The grading is hopelessly uneven and in one scene there seems to be a sound sync problem. Then there are other technical sins. I mean really, I thought we were long past the days when boom mikes could be seen at the top of the screen. Every where you look there are the telltale signs of a rushed, poorly researched photoplay. One glaring unforgivable scene shows a van that is supposed to be holding 12 heavily armed men sitting high on it's springs and obviously unladen to even the most unobservant watcher. On the writing side, the swearing is way overdone even for the Australian Language. The previous reviewer states that the film is star studded and uses the "hit" word to describe the casts previous film "Crackerjack".

Crackerjack was a disaster, even in this country. So it's hardly an accolade. C'mon....Lawn Bowls. Oh yeah, they were queuing up out of the cinema doors for that one. Finally on the directing, well all I can say is "Roll over Stefan Elliot, you will soon be joined in that wilderness you have occupied since Woop Woop". Will someone please take a big cattle prod to the Aussie Film industry. It's been in a coma for far too long.

A very solid directorial debut from one of Australia's finest comedy talents. Well written with good performances from Bob Franklin, Judith Lucy & long time Martin partner in crime Mick Molloy. Not a laugh a minute film, but very funny all the same, with a strong storyline (something too many comedies lack). The opening scene from a visual gag point of view is a real highlight.

Another thing worth noting, in a recent radio interview to promote the film, Martin said he made a conscious effort not put any trams in the film, as trams always seem to make an appearance in films set in Melbourne. Martin succeeds, this time including a train, part of another funny scene

I watched Bad Eggs with the preconception that it was a mix of serious cop drama and comedy. After watching The Late Show and listening to Martin/Molloy, Tony Martin has come to my attention again through his return to the airwaves on MMM. I am catching up on the self-confessed movie buff's interim works by watching Bad Eggs and reading his book Lolly Scramble.

Bob Franklin and Mick Molloy didn't strike me as the two best leading actors for a film, but they perform respectably within the low budget Australian comedy format. The comedy and drama are better integrated than I was expecting, Bad Eggs is basically a tale of two detectives with a capacity for ineptness and clumsiness, who get mixed up in corruption in their own department, the fictional Zero Tolerance Unit of Victoria. There probably actually are individual agencies like this now with a similar lack of transparency, with ASIO recently being expanded and given increased powers. The film gets serious when the two detectives get deeper and deeper in the poo, but the comedic elements return when they strike back with the help of Northey, played by Alan Borough.

On the whole Bad Eggs is akin to a film like True Lies on the comedy scale, it is primarily a drama with comedy arising from storyline elements rather than from deliberately inserted jokes. It never manages to excel in any particular area but what was achieved was a film with a professional look, a storyline that maintains interest for the first 90 minutes, and a cast of fairly decent Australian actors and comedians.

This movie describes itself as "a deadly serious comedy", but to me it is more of a "comedic thriller" in that the thriller aspect tends to predominate, with some laughs thrown in. It's well made, the plot being quite convoluted, and suspense maintained. Set in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, it can be compared with the movie "You Can't Stop the Murders" which was set in New South Wales. This latter film had more laughs, and less of the thriller element - but both are good movies and worth viewing. Bad Eggs gets 7 out of 10 from me.

There are a number of Australian movies around that tend to play up the typical Australian bloke or "sheila" image which quite frankly, make me want to curl up and die in embarrassment. (One of the previews I saw with this movie does nothing to make me think otherwise, a movie called Take Away). Then there are movies like Bad Eggs.

Bad Eggs tends not to try and have a laugh at us Aussies, rather, it aims (and for the most part, succeeds) in going for main stream comedy which could well work for international audiences.

If you can get past the so called "acting"(they are mostly stand up comedians, not thespians)you may end up enjoying a very witty movie, which contains quite a few sight gags, which are very funny. (The one in which the security guard is watching a send up of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? is quite hilarious)

"Imagine what you could do, with that cash bonanza of $478 dollars".

Even if you are not an Aussie, you should still find plenty to laugh at with this movie.

This is without doubt "Champagne comedy"