POUND OF FLESH (review)

Review by Benn Robbins

Someone has stolen Jean-Claude Van Damme’s kidney and he is pissed.

Pound of Flesh is a very odd and not what I expected, addition to the oeuvre of “The Muscles from Brussels”.

The story follows Van Damme’s character, Deacon, as he lands in an Asian country only to wake up the next day in a bathtub full of ice and missing his right kidney. What follows is his desperate hunt to retrieve it before it is too late. He must, of course, battle his way through street thugs, mercenaries, a hot Asian bartender and his own, very Christian brother before his quest comes to an end.

He eventually teams up with his brother and the “hooker with a heart of gold”, who set him up in the first place, to find his stolen renal organ.

I shit you not. This is the plot.

And I didn’t hate it.

I don’t know if I am impressed or if I am horrified that I didn’t hate this film more than I liked it.

It wasn’t very good. Don’t get me wrong. And it wasn’t horrible either.

The film ultimately had a strange heart to it.

In fact the ridiculous premise kept me intrigued to the end. I don’t want to spoil it, as I know you are all going to rush out and see it after you read this review. In the end the film wasn’t as bad as it could have been, though the action sequences were a little stilted and clunky throughout.

I can’t believe it has been over a quarter century since Van Damme first exploded onto the action/martial arts film scene with his breakout films No Retreat, No Surrender (1984), Bloodsport (1988), and Kickboxer (1989).  And unlike many of his contemporaries, Van Damme is still making movies and kicking his way onto the screen.

Fueled by his self-aware semi parody film JCVD (2008) and a turn as the villain Viain in Stallone’s action smorgasbord Expendables 2 Jean-Claude has seen a recent resurgence of direct to video hits and shows no sign of stopping.

Pound of Flesh is the third film he has made with director Ernie Barbarash and while I have not seen the other two from what I have read they aren’t completely panned.

The story in Pound of Flesh kept me entertained. It is well filmed and the fight scenes, as I said before, aren’t anything to write home about, however there were a lot of them, so I guess that is something.

This is not a film I wouldn’t ordinarily go out of my way to see, but it it is incredibly watchable in that-turn-off-your-mind way, and for the most part it’s solidly entertaining.

When was the last time anyone said that about Segal?