Product Details

• Actors: Alan Cassell, Michael Caton, Monica Maughan, Pete Postlethwaite, Paul Hogan
• Directors: Dean Murphy
• Format: Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Screen Media
• DVD Release Date: December 15, 2009
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B002QZDX24
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #367,122 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Studio: Gaiam Americas Release Date: 12/15/2009

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Bit of Aussie Humor and Tongue in Cheek, September 1, 2005

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Strange Bedfellows (DVD)

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS is one of those films that plays like a TV sitcom without the canned laughter - especially now that gay themed shows have made it big on television. This film's main charm is its Aussie flavor and that forgives a lot of the shortcomings of a fluffy idea of a script.

Essentially, two men (Paul Hogan and Michael Caton) decide to avoid back taxes and take advantage of a new law that allows same sex partners to gain the rights of married couples by passing as a gay married couple. How they go about convincing each other that they can pass as gay in order to convince the authorities and then how they can learn to act gay and live a gay life to back up their story is the action of the movie. Many stereotypes are included but somehow the Aussies know how to pull this off with minimal offense.

The overall theme, after the story is all said and done, is one of tolerance and compassion for people who are in different societal climes. Hogan and Caton pull this off well, showing how really everyone they meet in their charade is just a 'regular guy' - and for that reason the film becomes more tolerable than the usual farces that deal with 'passing'. Not a great movie, but one with a wink! Grady Harp, September 05

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great movie, July 26, 2005

By 

chicoer2003 "chicoer2003" (Fresno, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Strange Bedfellows (DVD)

Strange Bedfellows is a lot like the full monty. It's a quaint Australian movie that will leave you with a smile. Ot's funny (not hillarious) A good movie.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "I want to be the spouse!", September 7, 2005

By 

M. J Leonard "MikeonAlpha" (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Strange Bedfellows (DVD)

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.