Gabriel Macht is shown in a scene from “Middle Men.”

Writer-director Ruba Nadda's fourth film seeks poetry and comes up short. Shot on location in Egypt, it has the exotic setting. With Patricia Clarkson as a visiting wife left alone by her waylaid husband, and Alexander Siddig as her host and companion, it has the roles. But the slow pace and elegant mood of "Cairo Time" fails to summon any magic, and this film — a kind of Middle East version of "Lost in Translation" — passes with merely a picturesque tick-tock. A deeper relationship gradually forms between the visitor and native, and a question of how far they'll take it becomes the film's muted drama. But Clarkson and Siddig's lack of chemistry and Nadda's flat script keep things languid and unemotional. Nadda and cinematographer Luc Montpellier succeed in fashioning a graceful postcard to the city, but a story, too, would have been nice. PG for mild thematic elements and smoking. 89 minutes.

GRADE: * * ½ (out of 5)

By Jake Coyle, The Associated Press

'Middle Men'You'll probably want to take a shower after watching this, just to wash all the "ick" off yourself. And that's a compliment. Inspired-by-a-true-story film about the birth of Internet porn, it's giddily sleazy, full of convincing crazies and criminals, as well as the scumbags and wannabes who surround them. Writer-director George Gallo seems to have been influenced by "Boogie Nights" and "Goodfellas," not just in their subject matter but in their fast-paced, in-your-face hodgepodge of images, styles and music. It's a predictable rise-and-fall tale, but at least it's fun while it lasts. Besides, the details and the characters are what make these types of movies work. Giovanni Ribisi is gloriously over-the-top as a former veterinarian who helps come up with the idea of distributing porn online in the late 1990s when he becomes bored with his own, um, inspirational material. The real brains behind the operation is a former NASA technician (Gabriel Macht) who creates a program within minutes that allows users to provide their credit card information and receive photos and videos in return. But Luke Wilson is at the center of it all as the Texan with a knack for problem solving who helps legitimize their business. R for strong sexual content, nudity, language, drug use and violence. 113 minutes.

GRADE: * * * (out of 5)

By Christy Lemire, The Associated Press