Playing AVI files

I have some holiday avi files which were recorded on a friend's camcorder.  He 
used an MS app to transfer them to the PC.  I find that on my linux system 
I'm not able to view them. Running the file command on one of them I get:

"uvs040331-002-33.AVI: RIFF (little-endian) data, AVI, 720 x 576, 25.00 fps"

Does anyone know of a program that I can use to view (convert) them?  I 
normally use xine but it complains about not having the codec.  I don't 
remember now but I think that I get the same result from mplayer.

Any help or advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks
Eddie