Movie review: Youth finds anger outlet in “Never Back Down”
From Friday’s The Oklahoman:
In “Never Back Down,” Sean Faris stars as Jake, a rebellious high schooler who has a hard time getting a handle on his emotions.
He moves with his mother (Leslie Hope) and his younger brother, Charlie (Wyatt Smith), to
Florida, to enroll Charlie into a camp for tennis prodigies.
Jake hopes to leave the past behind, as his father recently died in a drunken-driving accident.
But when he moves to Orlando, Jake is drawn into a “Fight Club”-esque world of unsupervised teens who pound one another into submission on a weekly basis.
When Jake is goaded into a fight by Ryan (Cam Gigandet, “The O.C.”), Jake is manhandled. He follows a friend’s advice and begins mixed martial arts training with Jean Roqua (Djimon Hounsou, “Blood Diamond”). Roqua insists his fighters don’t get in fights outside the gym, but that’s a provision that doesn’t mean much to Ryan, who challenges Jake to fight him in the annual Beatdown, the championship of the underground mixed martial arts scene.
Never Back Down” largely follows “The Karate Kid” template, with more rock ’n’ roll and less heart.
Faris resembles Tom Cruise — with a bit of Christopher Reeve thrown in — so he certainly has the movie-star looks needed for
Hollywood. What he lacks in “Never Back Down” is the vulnerability Ralph Macchio brought to his similar role.
Gigandet’s Ryan is a smirky bad boy who oozes testosterone; fans of shirtless young men will find plenty of eye candy in this film. Amber Heard plays Baja, Ryan’s girlfriend, with depth (well, depth as defined by this movie), and provides something to look at for the guys in between the violent beatdowns. The generically titled “Never Back Down” is better than it could be and should entertain its target audience, but it is predictable and doesn’t break any ground. (2 stars)
– Matt Price
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