Review: Pound of Flesh

For many, Jean Claude Van Damme will always be remembered for playing the lead role in Time Cop (no idea what his character name was in that movie). For others, he will be remembered for his role in Universal Soldier (again, I don’t remember what his name was there).

For me, the Muscles from Brussels will forever be Guile from the Street Fighter movie. Being my preferred character in that franchise, I always had an affinity for Van Damme’s Guile and can still quote his iconic one-liners from that cheese-fest!

While a new generation may now only know him from The Expendables and the Coors Light commercials, Pound of Flesh demonstrates that Van Damme has still got the charm and wit to carry a good ol’ action yarn.

Playing a former black-ops agent named Deacon, Van Damme is set to donate his kidney to his sick niece in order to save her life. However, after an ill-advised liaison with a beautiful local woman in the Philippines, he wakes up to find himself in a bathtub filled with ice, a nasty scar on his side and a note thanking him for his business.

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However, with this being Jean Claude and his far more impressive set of skills compared to that tall Irish man, he sets out to recover what was taken from him and punish the perpetrators severely.

Pound of Flesh is a low-budget affair that sees Van Damme face off against some generic scum. To aid him, he is accompanied by his religious brother George, played by John Ralston, and a former contact of his, Kung, played by Aki Aleong. After tricking our hero, the woman who drugged Deacon also decides to help him. She is played competently by Charlotte Peters.

As is the tradition in action movies, the plot is surplus to requirements – it only serves as an excuse for more and more set pieces. Thankfully, in this case, that is acceptable as Van Damme is still awesome, at the ripe age of 54. He will simply make you feel inadequate – like all the best action stars do.

While the action is handled well by Van Damme’s more recent regular collaborator Ernie Barbarash, the script and dialogue is too po-faced to ignore. “Killing is easy. Living with it, that’s hard.” Discussions on the morality of killing are not served well when all the audience wants is more killing!

Regardless, the action does keep the viewer engaged. The usual car chases and fights are where Van Damme shines – and shines he does. The set pieces are kinetic and graceful, attributes that describe the Belgian actor quite well.

Pound of Flesh is a competently made action thriller that re-affirms Van Damme’s place as an action icon. The production values are passable and the script is unfortunately unavoidable, but each set piece worked. Fans of Van Damme will enjoy this, ergo I enjoyed this!