Never Back Down (2008) Movie Review, Trailer, Film Still and Poster

USA 2008
Director: Jeff Wadlow
Cast: Sean Faris, Amber Heard, Cam Gigandet, Djimon Hounsou, Evan Peters, Leslie Hope, Lauren Leech
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: March 14th 2008
Running Time: 1 hour 53 minutes

The Movie Review

Never Back Down film still 1


NEVER BACK DOWN
Storyline:
Cast:
Ending:
Overall:

I think it's time for a little a change, a change in the teenage or college student movies. Majority of college flicks send their students either to get laid in the raunchy fraternity or being slashed one by one in the wilderness or in-the-middle-of-nowhere. How about starting from now, just send them to study martial arts and some cool fighting moves and amuse the audience with their new sets of skills? Better be. Never Back Down surely not a novelty, but it's absolutely fresh and choked full of entertainment

Jake Tyler (Sean Faris), a natural born brawler, is moving to Orlando with his mother and little brother. Jake was known as a football star but often gets into a fight for the lack in anger-control. In his new school, Jake is surprisingly famous and the girls and the guys are noticing him wherever he goes. An attractive girl named Baja Miller (Amber Heard) then invites Jake to a hip college party. A party filled with sexy dishes and regular college "activities". But on the end of the show, the party holds another agenda. An agenda that will force Jake's spirit and stamina to the limit and will even encourage him to train a lot harder.

I'm pretty sure that the filmmakers probably have the idea of this brawling theme from all the amateur fighting movies uploaded from all over the world into the internet even before YouTube was created. Or probably taking the new rebirth hype of martial arts or hand to hand combat being created by Thailand movies like Ong-Bak (2003) or Tom Yum Goong (2005). Since it's very clear that Jake's friend Max Cooperman (Evan Peters) tells Jake to learn some Muay Thai moves, a form of Thailand Martial Arts used heavily in Ong-Bak (2003). Or if I have to take examples from other Hollywood movies, Never back Down is like a hybrid of Karate Kid (1984) (using the final technique just like crane kick style) and Blood Sport (1988), only that the filmmakers gave it the touch of the modern college students' life with all the hand-held camera and red cups.

Frankly, there aren't that too many fighting scenes in this movie, in a sense Never Back Down skips the atmosphere of true action or true fighting movies, it simply a movie with strong Brawl underlying theme.

The acting quality of the cast is good, they are capable of showing their emotion, especially Djimon Hounsou, and Amber Heard could give a very sensual romantic scene with Sean Faris, she reminds me a lot of Scarlett Johansson by the way.

What I like the most from this usually-predictable movies with equally predictable outcomes, actually the filmmakers had thrown in some twists, which kinda trick the audience sitting in the theater. It's good decision, good twist.. It manages to push this action film to leave the world of never-ending clichés.

© iwan pranowo of Movielogy.com
posted: Jan 13th 2010 12:03 pmXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX