The Freshman is a 1990 American crime comedy film written and directed by Andrew Bergman, and starring Marlon Brando, Matthew Broderick, Bruno Kirby, Maximilian Schell, Penelope Ann Miller, and Frank Whaley.

The plot revolves around a young New York film student's entanglement in an illicit business of offering exotic and endangered animals as specialty food items, including his being tasked with delivering a Komodo dragon for this purpose.

Clark Kellogg leaves his mother Liz and environmental activist stepfather Dwight in Vermont to go to New York University (NYU) to study film.

Clark tells his instructor at NYU Professor Fleeber, who uses books he has written as required study, about losing his belongings.

Clark enlists the help of his roommate Steve Bushak to pick up the animal and deliver it to Larry London and his assistant Edward.

Upon being caught, Clark is told by Greenwald and Simpson that Carmine—also known as "Jimmy the Toucan"—not only is a Mafia figure but runs the Fabulous Gourmet Club.

It is an illicit and nomadic establishment, never holding its dinners in the same place twice, where (for enormous prices) endangered animals are served as the main course, specially prepared by Larry London.

While driving to the Gourmet Club, a plan is hatched to get Carmine out of the exotic animal business for good and to clear Clark.

At the Gourmet Club's dinner, longtime Miss America pageant host Bert Parks sings a version of "There She Is" when the Komodo dragon is revealed.

Revealing their corruption, Greenwald and Simpson leave with a duffel bag filled with money, though they are soon caught by real FBI agents and arrested for their crimes.

Larry London reveals tonight's expensive and exotic dinner is actually Hawaiian tigerfish mixed with smoked turkey from Virginia, not endangered species (a long-running con of Carmine's, swindling the rich out of their money).

Bergman got the idea of the film after reading a newspaper article about mobster Vincent Teresa being arrested for smuggling a near-extinct lizard into the United States.

The site's consensus states: "Buoyed by the charm of Matthew Broderick in the title role and Marlon Brando as a caricature of his Godfather persona, The Freshman benefits from solid casting, a clever premise and sweet humor".