Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
3/23/08
Here's
the thing: 99% of movies are telling a story that's been told before.
75% of movies are telling a story that's been told before A LOT.
Most of the time, the trick is to make it feel like that's not the case.
But there are some genres where the very hitting of specific, well-worn
notes is an integral part of the experience, like watching a classical
orchestra perform a beloved piece. It's not about innovation, it's
about doing what the audience wants to see and doing it well. In
that regard, Never Back Down, the umpteenth movie in which a wise
mentor teaches an unpopular high school student to master a talent so he
can outperform the school bully, is a smashing success. Filled with
high energy, game performances and bone-crunching action, it's also delivered
with the slightest wink. Yeah, writer Chris Hauty and director Jeff
Wadlow know you've seen this all before, and they also know you paid good
money to see it again.
Jake
Tyler (Sean Faris) is a Troubled Teen. After the Tragic Death of
his Father (Steve Zurk), Jake Can't Stay Out of Trouble. But he,
his Mom Margot (Leslie Hope) and younger brother Charlie (Wyatt Smith)
have a Chance at a Fresh Start when she moves them to Orlando so Charlie
can pursue a tennis scholarship. Jake's New School is jam-packed
with spoiled rich kids who post dirty secrets on YouTube for immediate
consumption on each others' cell phones. The latest dirt: a
particularly nasty fight Jake had on the football field at his old school.
He catches the eye of Baja Miller (Amber Heard), a smart hottie who hides
her real personality So She Can Fit In. She invites him to a party
at the home of Big Man on Campus Ryan McCarthy (Cam Gigandet), but it's
really a setup. Baja is Ryan's trophy girlfriend (he only seems to
have women around so nobody notices how all that really interests him is
beating up men), and she's lured Jake here so the reigning champ can challenge
the New Kid in his Own Personal Fight Club. Teasing about his Dad's
death makes him snap, but Jake's Old School Boxing Moves Are No Match for
Ryan's Mixed Martial Arts. Humiliated, he's persuaded by fight-obsessed
geek Max (Evan Peters) to Start Taking Classes from extreme fighting guru
Jean Roqua (Djimon Hounsou). The lessons don't just show Jake how
to take down his enemies, they also help him to channel his anger, and
A Bond Forms Between Student and Teacher. Baja realizes the error
of her ways, and things are looking up for Jake. But If He Won't
Agree to Fight Ryan at an annual underground tournament called the Beat
Down, Ryan will just have to force him, No Matter Who He Has to Hurt.
Never
Back Down is clearly in on its' own joke, but it also knows that one
reason this story has been filmed so many times (best as The Karate
Kid) is because it's a really good one. Wadlow keeps the
energy high at all times with fast-paced editing, all sorts of camera tricks
(my favorite was the X-Ray Cam that reveals when Jake's bones are particularly
ill-treated by an opponent's moves), and some really superb sound editing.
I can't remember the last movie that featured so much fun dialog from off-camera
extras. My personal favorite was after Jake blows off Ryan's reminder
that everyone has seen his moves online with “You know what they say about
the Internet,” some random partygoer enthusiastically chimes in “We sure
do!” I also loved some guy in the crowd shouting “THIS is the Beat
Down!” during the climactic fight. While Hauty's characters are familiar,
they are also better than the types they represent. The Tyler family
dynamic is gradually revealed to be stronger than we'd expect, and Ryan's
rage has the slightest dusting of believability. Baja (so named because
“My parents smoked a lot of weed”) is the most problematic character, expecting
to be forgiven for her willingness to do anything to be popular with the
shamelessness of a career politician, but once she and Jake get together,
they genuinely seem to make each other happy, a rarity for even the best-acted
screen couples. And Jean Roqua's code of honor and the tragedy that
inspired it are really believable.
The
performances are also above-average for this sort of fare. Gigandet
(best known for his time on TV's The OC) is a real find, oozing
entitlement and evil while having subtle fun with the obvious homoerotic
underpinnings of this old story about the hottest guy in school reacting
to the arrival of a competitor for that title by wanting to beat the stuffing
out of him. I loved Ryan, I wouldn't ever want him to change, and
I wanted him to get every square inch of his ass kicked. Faris (who
looks like a young Tom Cruise) has real starpower, and I liked the fact
that while Sean has a lot of anger, he never lets him become a mopey bore.
He also has great sibling chemistry with Smith. Hope (best known
as the ill-fated wife of 24's Jack Bauer) holds a clinic on making
a thankless role sing. She owns ever moment she has on screen as
Jake's stressed-out Mom, and her performance makes an unlikely turn from
opposing to supporting his desire to fight totally believable. Hounsou,
the two-time Academy Award nominee, is one of our best and most charismatic
actors, but Hollywood rarely knows what to do with him. He's wonderful
as the trainer battling his own demons while helping others with theirs.
Heard, on the other hand, is powerless for the first hour against material
that it utterly awful. But she deserves credit for the very real
spark between Jake and Baja once the script moves her character past pouty
nonsense. I particularly liked a scene where the two of them have
a mock boxing match in his room, reveling in double entendres about submission
and stances because it's the rarest of movie love scenes: one where
the characters honestly seem entertained by their own sexuality rather
than simply trotting it out for us as an obligatory cinematic peep show.
The
climactic Beat Down tournament is well-staged and cast (the assorted fighters
who mix it up with Jake and Ryan create whole characters with their outrageous
hairstyles alone), and the Big Finish is suitably exciting both in spite
of and because its' outcome is never in doubt. Never Back Down
is absolutely only for people who revel in the skillful enactment of cliches
because it has virtually nothing else to offer. But I really enjoy
this particular set of cliches, and if you do too, don't let a little thing
like originality stand between you and the year's first really good action
movie. |
