Strange Bedfellows (2004)

Very well executed

ridiculous rating

How sad is this?

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Simply one of the worst Aussie movies ever, and that's saying something.Paul Hogan and Michael Caton star as a couple of mens men who stumble across a wacky idea. Vince (Hogan) is facing some business tax problems. One day he discovers there are some great tax cuts for gay couples. Desperate, he asks his buddy Ralph (Caton) to pretend they are living together and are gay so they can get the required tax relief. Sounds funny right? Wrong. You'd think these two Aussie comedy legends could pull this off with ease, but working with a pathetic script some homophobe probably wrote in 1962 made it tough. There were plenty of unbelievable scenarios thrown in eg Ralph's visiting daughter, a community dance, all of which fell flat on their face. I know of a few older people who appreciated it, but anyone under 39 who sees this will probably start giving themselves paper cuts just to break the boredom.

If Australian viewers will cast their minds back to the seventies, they may remember The Paul Hogan Show, a variety show in which Paul irreverently played the larrikin host. The twist was that he would make a grand entrance wearing tight fitting black shorts and a rugby top – a caricature of a footballer.In Strange Bedfellows almost thirty years later, he cleverly parodies this costume by dressing up in close hugging spandex shorts and a black figure hugging tank top. Paul is probably having a good old chuckle at himself, and we are too, because there's generally lot of laughs to be had in this irreverent, and funny, but never offensive Australian film.This is the best film that Paul Hogan has made in years. He doesn't over-play it, he's instantly amiable and most of all, he's giving life to a character that fits him like a glove. But kudos should also be given to the talented Michael Caton, who at times, gently steals the movie from beneath Hogan's feet.Hogan plays Vince, a theatre owner in the small Victorian country town of Yackandandah. Vince's wife has recently left him and now he's left with nothing, apart from the single-bed he sleeps on in the projection booth. When he gets a letter from his ex-wife's accountant ordering he pay back years of back taxes, he turns to his best friend Ralph (Michael Caton), the town mechanic, for help.Vince has just read that the current government, in a race for electoral votes, is giving gay couples the same legal rights as married couples including a retrospective tax law that allows them to claim all the usual tax rebates for up to five years. Vince decides the best thing to do is become gay - at least on paper.Ralph is initially hesitant, but once Vince explains to him that it's just form filling bureaucracy, and that no one in the small town need ever know, he decides to help his best friend out. Things seem to be going well, until a letter arrives stating that a representative of the tax office is coming to visit, in order to make sure Vince and Ralf really are a same-sex couple.Vince and Ralf are forced to embark on a crash course in learning how to be gay. Enlisting the help of the local gay hairdresser, (Glynn Nicholas) they learn how to "place a hand on a penguin," wax lyrical over a photograph of Liberace and call each other "she" and "girl." They even take a trip to Sydney where they befriend a group of biker gays and drag queens.When the reserved and seemingly threatening tax inspector (Pete Postlethwaite) is sent to audit their claim, Ralph and Vince must try and convince him that they are a loving homosexual couple in a small town who knows them as anything but. Adding to the shenanigans is Ralf's daughter (Kestie Morassi), who is coming up to stay from Melbourne; she's devoted to Ralf, and has a surprise in store for him.What makes Strange Bedfellows work so well is the amazing script that never condescends to either the urban gay community or the country people of Yackandandah. Judgment is never passed, even though the rural folk might see the gays as "weird," while the gays might view the country people as homophobic. Stereotypes abound, but the tone of the film is such that one cannot take any of them seriously.Paul Hogan as Vince seems to be having a great old time; he's empathetic to the gay community, and seems to be opening his heart to a segment of society that he knows nothing about, while Michael Caton delivers a wonderfully warm character with enough complexity and self-contradiction to be three-dimensional.Detailed, effectively paced, Strange Bedfellows is crammed with characters you'll feel are old mates by the time the credits roll, but best of all, Strange Bedfellows is a terrific plea for tolerance and equality for the gay community, along with a kind of homage to the age old Australian tradition of mateship. Mike Leonard September 05.

A movie with "Crocodile-Dundee" Paul Hogan in the leading role. It's the first film in three years for him. He even seems a bit younger than before...go figure. Anyway, the movie Strange Bedfellows starts off quite boring and I almost turned it off after ten minutes, but then it started to get a bit interesting. Two elderly men trying to pose as gay-men in a little conservative village...hmmm, that's a thought. Then at some stage of the movie I started to think about what gay people like when people are making fun, as it seemed, about the stereotype gay-man. I couldn't answer that, but when the film came to it's end, I was filled with a warm and pleasant feeling, and I really think it teaches something about friendship and tolerance, which there is nearly not enough of in this world of ours.

Following in the footsteps of "The Castle" and "Crackerjack" comes another sweet-humored Australian comedy.Normally, the thought of having to put up with Paul Hogan for two hours would be enough keep most people away from a theatre, but Hogan and Caton as the affectionate 'squabbling old-couple' friendship is a highlight.The premise is not overly original, a small town theatre owner (Paul Hogan) convinces a mechanic friend (Michael Caton) to pretend they are a gay couple to claim tax advantages. What follows as they try to hide their scheme from the other townsfolk, while trying to learn how to be 'gay' for the tax inspector, are the highlights of the movie. Hilarity ensues when our heroes travel to Sydney for the (gay) mardi-gras to study gay culture.The climax is very predictable and somewhat unsatisfying, but overall the slapstick style is worth the cost of admission.