Bad Eggs
Review by Clint Morris
 Tony
Martin's Bad Eggs comes out at the tail-end of a string
of well-rounded - and reasonably successful - Australian comedies.
But being that the star of one of those victories, Mick Molloy
[Crackerjack], also appears in Martin's film, it'd
seemed this one's in with a fighting chance.
Question is: Is watching Mick the bumbling cop better than
watching Mick the bumbling copper?
The former TV star turned radio personality stars as oafish,
unorthodox Ben Kinnear, a member of Melbourne's Zero Tolerance
Police Force.
When he and partner, Mike Paddock [Bob Franklin] once again
embarrass themselves and the force - they're responsible for
killing a magistrate among other things - they're demoted
to street patrolling, and ordered to hand in their swish suits
for the plain blue uniform.
But just as quick as they're demoted, the duo stumble across
possible corruption in the force. Can they thwart the system
and ultimately get their plum jobs back?
Martin - whose been collaborating with star Molly, since
their days on TV's "The Late Show", as well as a
popular national radio program - shows potential here with
his first stint as director.
The script's reasonably tight, the characters well defined
and everything kept an enjoyable-enough pace. He obviously
knows his old cop show's quite well.
There's a slight lag in some of the gags - they're giggle-worthy
but not ecstatically funny. But the ones that do work work
quite well, and mainly because of the highly underrated Molloy
- he's the glue holding most of the film together.
Bob Franklin, Judith Lucy, Shaun Micallef, Bill Hunter -
are as equally well-cast, but Molloy's obvious charm and appealing
sense of humour carry the film through it's lagging moments.
Be interesting to see where he goes from here.
Ok, so I may have liked Crackerjack a little better,
and Molly, the lawn bowler, had me laughing in a couple more
spots, but Tony Martin's Bad Eggs is still another
win for Australian comedy.
Hopefully we'll be seeing more of notorious twosome 'Martin
Molloy' in future years.
3 out of 5
Bad Eggs
Australian release: Thursday July 24th
Cast: Mick Molloy, Bob Franklin, Judith Lucy, Alan Brough,
Bill Hunter, Marshall Napier, Steven Vidler, Nicholas Bell,
Shaun Micallef, Robyn Nevin.
Director: Tony Martin.
Website: N/A
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