Pound of Flesh (2011)

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Shakespearean Professor Noah Melville (Malcolm McDowell) is a fine instructor with eager bright students as he reads to them from "A Merchant of Venice". He also acts as a pimp, helping poor needy co-eds get their tuition by setting them up with a select clients...ones that believe safe sex doesn't involve guns. Unfortunately in the opening scene, one of the men (Timothy Bottoms) didn't practice safe sex and a co-ed (Ashley Wren Collins) is killed in a serious freak accident.The movie has scenes of bikini clad girls discussing sex in very frank terms. Noah continues to help his students because tuition is high at this small private college. Angus Macfadyen plays an unkempt detective who has fallen from grace. He is a sad excuse for "Columbo" in this unfunny version of "Risky Business."The film couldn't bring it all together. The supporting cast was unconvincing. The climax scene was poorly written. It failed to bring out the kinky sex part, thinking the movie could stand on its own as a drama with a sex background.F-bombs, sex, nudity (Ashley Wren Collins

I had the misfortune of coming upon this crap movie tonight on a free weekend on DirecTV on Showtime. If this is some kind of courtesy freebie, I'd like to pay to NOT watch this. Only one word is needed in describing this movie: ABOMINABLE!! But seeing how IMDb requires a minimum of 10 lines, let me just add that this movie is so bad, so clearly poorly directed, that I came close to puking.Malcolm McDowell must see this as his SECOND most shameful cinematic achievement. Timonthy Bottoms? Really? It sinks from low to abysmal as the minutes pass.COME ON, MAN!PLEASE: do yourself a favor - don't waste any time on this drivel.

Caught this movie with my buddies over the weekend (by accident) having a couple of beers. Chicks are HOT!!! It's got to be over a 5 just for that! I would check it out, thought the story line was cool, different. Man, if only i went to college with girls like that?. Joking aside, Malcom McDowell is awesome. The detective was a train wreck big time, could have been less of one but it does make for more drama. In a nutshell, you mix hot chicks with sex its gonna get your attention, you add that with good actors like Malcolm McDowell you're going to want to watch the movie through. Kinda knew what was coming in the end but still wanted to see if it would happen.

It would be very easy to sneer at this film. There are certainly flaws enough, but one should remember that a number of people spent a number of months creating a film which is not pornography, an action epic or teen horror extravaganza. More to the point, it is not an "art house" film either, so, in my book, some folk had faith in it and it deserves more than a shrug.The positives: Malcolm McDowell – an actor who has specialised in off-the-wall roles from Anderson's anti-establishment films and Kubrick's "Clockwork Orange" , to the earnest, wife-loving Shakespeare lecturer who is also, with the best of intentions, a pimp.His classes of nubile young students, who would, in the normal course of events, be screwing spotty undergraduates, are actually occasionally screwing very wealthy, if elderly, men in exchange for scholarships. Is this a problem? It depends on your point of view, and this gives the film its saving interest.The opening shots leave one in no doubt that this is a film aimed at a "mature" audience. Things go wrong in a way which ensures that we drop into Professor Noah Melville's world at a point when it is about to unravel (His name is a rather forced amalgam of American literature and the Bible).McDowell is an actor. He carries and almost saves the film. His Melville neither tastes his own wares nor benefits financially. He merely harnesses the "summer seeming lust" to get his students free education. Unfortunately not all of his clients are as high-minded.Enter the negatives. The film loses its grip and spins into the bushes. A detective (Macfadyen), a cliché of the misunderstood divorced cop with food in one hand and a faint glint in the eye when he remembers why he joined the force before disillusionment and a justified killing, bumbles through a script Shakespeare could not save. If ever a character was created by a committee, this is it. His partner I shall not name because she will want to forget this film, as will several young women whose talents do not stretch to acting. It is a great pity that a thought-provoking idea was allowed to die on the altar of cast budget.Does the film make one think? Yes, but mainly about how much better it could have been. The director has tried to span too large a ravine between an intelligent college human interest story like Educating Rita, and a poor man's Lethal Weapon. I'm afraid the film falls into the sad category of "nice try".