Never Back Down (Review)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A relatively poor but decent Midwestern kid transfers into a new high school filled with shallow rich ki---hey, why are you stopping me? Ah, yes. I did request. But you can’t get very far into any plot point from Never Back Down without an earlier high school entertainment popping into mind. In this case Beverly Hills 90210 or, if you replace Midwestern with “homeschooled” Mean Girls is your movie. But wait there’s more. The protagonist has daddy issues. His mom, a harried overworked woman, is trying to make a new life for her troubled son and his cheerier kid brother. Now we’re in Lost Boys territory… albeit without vampires, damnit. Almost immediately upon entering his new school our hero meets a ruthless, popular and violent rival and falls for the jerk’s girl. You know how these things go hand in hand in the movies. We’re settling into Karate Kid now. Make yourself comfortable because that’s where Never Back Down is putting down roots. After a humiliating fight, our hero enlists the help of a wise ethnic mentor to teach him martial arts.

Yes, the new movie Never Back Down borrows liberally from just about every teen movie you’ve seen and recalls still more. It’s heart and blood are all Karate Kid. Fast and Furious illicit group adrenaline makes up its torso. Fight Club’s rules and homage are its shameless grinning mug. And there you have the Frankenstein monster that is Never Back Down. Add some appendages and stitch it all together. For the electric shock to bring this beast to life, add up-to-the-minute YouTube references.

This fight movie about a Midwestern scrapper, learning to best his rivals through physical discipline and self control is never really believable as high school drama, but it’s certainly a passable dumb entertainment. The cast is mostly up to their roles. Cam Gigandet, all lithe hardbodied sadism knows what to do for the 'boo hiss' requirements of the role. It’s not an original performance but he livens up the proceedings. In the frenzied mom role, something that might have been played by Dianne Weist many moons ago, we have Leslie Hope. She also makes do. The girl, here named “Baja” for some Florida flair is embodied by Amber Heard. She’s no Elisabeth Shue in The Karate Kid… but then again, who is? In the lead role Sean Faris isn’t exactly a charismatic powerhouse but he’s still watchable, eerily recalling a young Tom Cruise (complete with those daddy issues Tom used to have in his movies!) if you left him stretched out a medieval rack for months. Too bad the Cruise intensity doesn’t survive all the lengthening. Djimon Hounsou plays Mr Miyagi Jean Roqua but because he works more traditionally as a teacher (no wax on / wax off lessons) and he does it from a 24/7 gym that he owns. This performance doesn't so much sample Mr Miyagi as fuse Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman in Million Dollar Baby. Roqua both resists and loves his new pupil and Hounsou, always an able actor even if his roles are never interesting, sells it with his usual skill.

What’s most interesting about Never Back Down is that the teen angst comes with a capital A. There’s a surprising amount of handwringing about violence, making the movie superficially deeper than the “let’s fight” vibe that its marketing gives off. Also working into the surprise factor: the movie actually cares about its characters, for better and worse. There might be too much padding –every character has to have an issue they’re working through and the arc to go along with it -- but it’s endearing to see this type of movie carry a soft spot for even minor characters.

Like so many movies built from huge chunks of departed superior entertainments, Never Back Down never transcends its influences to become something special but for what it’s worth, this Frankenstein is not a hideous monster. It’s actually a looker … from certain angles at least. The stitching may be visible but the beast is well meaning. It’s too much to say that the movie has soul, but neither is it soulless like so many high school movie ripoffs. Rippling musculature aside, Never Back Down is harmless too in a dorky hypocritical way. Michael Haneke’s Funny Games might be playing in the next theater, lecturing you on violence as entertainment but in its own way, Never Back Down does its own handwringing on the topic. Watching the screenplay trying to wriggle around its own peaceful themes to make sure it provides the vengeful beat down we want to see –violence as entertaiment, hurrah! – is more than a little amusing.