Written by Elliott Schuhardt, Media Editor-at-Large
 

The Flick

Sam (Kyle Gallner – Nightmare on Elm Street, Jennifer’s Body) manages to get himself kicked out of every boarding school he’s been in.  All this lands him at Moore Prep, his latest attempt at an education.  After meeting the school’s dean, Dan (James Belushi – The Defenders),  it seems like this might be a new life for Sam.  When his mother is no longer able to pay for him to continue going to school, the life he looked forward to begins to disappear. When a one night stand with Alison (Kathryn Morris – Minority Report) leaves Sam with a $500 check for “Education”, Sam sees a light at end of the tunnel. 

The film starts out in the somewhat near future with Sam leading a successful escort service.  I bet you’re wondering how Sam got to that point.  He does too, and knows you have questions.  The rest of the film unravels through a series of questions that break the scenes in the film up. Things start out simply enough, with “How did it all start?” “How did I meet my business partners?” and “How did a one night stand turn into a cottage industry?” but slowly spirals down into darker questions like, “How did I become the bad guy?”

Things start to get complicated when Sam begins dating Courtney (Sarah Hyland – Modern Family) and becomes reluctant to continue providing services for Alison. After Dan pulls some strings at the school and offers Sam a scholarship, he wants to quit the business altogether.  The rest of his crew tries to run one last gig without him and it collapses in ruin as you’d expect. Sam is once again struggling for the life he hoped to have.

The premise of Cougars Inc. is about as ridiculous as you would ever think, but beneath that premise is a solid film about redemption.  Not just the redemption that Sam achieves as the film goes on, but the redemption that Dan finds by helping Sam. It creates real substance in a film otherwise bogged down with toilet humor. The screen time between Belushi and Gallner is the real reason to see through its hour and a half run time.  The banter between them is top notch and develops into something resembling a father-son relationship as movie goes on.

Audio/Video

Comedies likeCougars Inc. don’t really takeadvantage of Blu-ray.  There’s rarely any special effects used that shine on the format. Regardless, the 1080P 16X9 widescreen presentation looks solid here, almost too much.  It’s a little easy to see the caked makeup on many of the actor’s faces.  It doesn’t distract too much, but it is noticeable.  Like the video presentation, the English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track is solid but nothing spectacular.  The soundtrack features some decent tunes, but nothing you’ll wholly remember long after the credits roll. Movies like this generally introduce some great unknown bands, but such is not the case here.  

Special Features

Cougars Inc.on Blu-ray is available as a single disc collection with the following extras:

• “The Ultimate Cougar” featurette
• Audio commentary with the cast and crew
• Deleted scene

The commentary contains most of the cast including Kyle Gallner, Kathryn Morris and director K. Asher Leven.  Leven is a something of a chatter box and really dominates everything leaving the rest to chime in every so often.  The dialogue between them during chapters four and five is particularly listen-worthy.  The featurette is a small one at three minutes and contains some of the other “students” at Moore Prep answering questions related to cougars, MILFS, and their relation to other women.  Their responses are pretty silly, but it’s a nice addition considering the subject material.  The deleted scene is an extension of the one where Dan tells Sam that his mother can’t pay his tuition.  Dan explains more of how he became the dean and how he met his wife.

Overall

The premise behind Cougars Inc. is altogether hard to believe but there’s enough at its core to make this an altogether enjoyable film.  

ComicsOnline gives Cougars Inc. 4 out of 5 MILFs.

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