Movie review: 'Never Back Down' same old stuff

Movie review: 'Never Back Down' same old stuff

by John Serba | The Grand Rapids Press
Friday March 14, 2008, 9:22 AM

Fighting back: Sean Faris stars as the new kid in school who gets on the wrong side of the resident bully in "Never Back Down."

Temper, temper.

Jake Tyler has a hard time controlling his. Mention his dead father, and it's akin to making Bruce Banner angry -- something's gonna get smashed. With fists.

This hothead needs some therapy, say, through mixed martial-arts training, where he'll learn how to make his muscles rock-hard and take down an opponent and pound him in the face. But most important, he learns when not to fight.

"Never Back Down" is Jake's story. Played respectably by Sean Faris (until the script requires him to cry), Jake is the new kid at school, and he already has a reputation for clobberin' dudes.

'Never Back Down'

Two of four stars

Rated: PG-13 for mature thematic material involving intense sequences of fighting and violence, some sexuality, partying and language -- all involving teens


Director: Jeff Wadlow


The resident tough guy, Ryan McCarthy (Cam Gigandet), is a smack-talking, rich-kid, champion brawler so cocky his grin instantly inspires loathing.

Ryan goads Jake into a fight and promptly pummels him. Standing between these two testosterone cases is Baja (Amber Heard), a blond hottie whose unusual name does not accurately convey her deep inner vapidness. She dumps the ego-stud Ryan, preferring the humility of the underdog. This sets up a climactic showdown between Ryan and Jake, who inarguably has attained the skills to beat this scoundrel, and certainly, of course, without a doubt, walks away from the confrontation in a moment of zen.

Yeah, right.

"Never Back Down" is formulaic down to its unbreakable bones. It's just like "The Karate Kid," except this time, sweeping the leg is fair play. It's also reminiscent of the recent dance flick "Step Up 2 the Streets," with its not-quite-legal competitions being held in private clubs and parking lots. Except here, one gains a man's respect by caving in his skull.

As often is a problem with comeback-kid sports flicks, "Never Back Down" is a montage in search of a movie. The sheer repetition of Jake's training sequences, set to forgettable, semi-aggressive pop-punk and emo tunes, pads the first two acts so much the film has us believing it's from the same creative genealogy as the coma-inducing Oscar ceremony. This movie even ends with a montage; consistency isn't the issue here.

No, the drama, which is mostly soapy and dopey, bogs it down the most. Djimon Hounsou, playing Jake's trainer, Jean Roqua, classes up the joint with a sincerity the film doesn't deserve. He has a winsome exchange with Jake's mom, Margot (Leslie Hope), that rings true, and has us momentarily believing realistic humans actually inhabit this script.

But then it gets back to the cornball conflict among teens who don't look at all like teens and are played by actors well into their 20s, making it even more amusing that the MPAA's descriptor for the PG-13 rating is a laundry list of potentially objectionable elements "all involving teens."

Admittedly, there's a small, guilty part of me that enjoys this type of mostly insipid pablum, especially when the screenplay amusingly feigns brains (hey, Jake is an allegorical Achilles!), or come the sock-'em, kick-'em, gouge-'em finale, when the body tenses in anticipation of the next bruising, flinch-worthy jiu-jitsu maneuver.

At the very least, these movies teach us there's no problem, be it internal or external, that a righteous, humble fellow can't solve by punching an arrogant, overconfident gent into pulp.

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