Frauds opens at the very remote (and fictional) La Cienaga Prison in the back of beyond in Spain, as Bert’s (Suranne Jones – Film Club) getting out of chokey after ten years in the slammer, with best friend Sam (Jodie Whittaker – Doctor Who) coming to pick her up.
Well, ‘best friend’, even though she never visited her during all her time inside.
And “Bert & Sam”? Sounds more like a night down the Dog & Duck. Who came up with these names? Well, other than the fact it was the brainchild of Ms Jones with Anne-Marie O’Connor, who last brought us the awful Maryland.
Before you can say Thelma & Louise, Bert’s revealed she has cancer, and that now she’s out, there’s time for one last hurrah!
Ultimately, she wants to steal a Salvador Dali painting, despite being in a highly-secure location; and an early theft – to show what they can manage – is particularly throwaway, since it doesn’t actually show the meat and potatoes of how they managed it.
There’s also some unresolved family/friendship issues between the pair, but it still doesn’t make this interesting.
Yes, it’s O’Connor and Jones who are the frauds, as this nonsense has plot holes as see-through as a cheap magic trick, and behaves as superficially as BBC1’s Hustle used to. How the hell did that shite end up with EIGHT series?
As a drama, Frauds is incredibly poor. I thought Coldwater was ridiculous, but at least Andrew Lincoln and Ewen Bremner kept it somewhat watchable. Frauds is just bland.
Thanks to our friends at ITV for the screeners prior to release.
Frauds continues tomorrow night on ITV at 9pm, and will then be on Sundays and Mondays, but is already available to stream in full on ITVX.
It’s not yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but when it is, it will be listed on the New DVD, Blu-ray, 3D and 4K releases UK page.
Director: Guilia Gandini
Producer: Pat Tookey-Dickson
Creators: Suranne Jones, Anne-Marie O’Connor
Writer: Anne-Marie O’Connor
Cast:
Bert: Suranne Jones
Sam: Jodie Whittaker
Miguel: Horacio Colomé
Miss Take: Talisa Garcia
Mateo: Abdul Salis
Bilal: Karan Gill
Jackie Diamond: Elizabeth Berrington
The Great Diavolo: Lee Boardman
Komet: Karise Yansen
Deegs: Christian Cooke
Celine: Kate Fleetwood
Blas: Javier Taboada
Amaya: Nansi Nsue
Carlos Pérez: Victor Solé
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.