Never Back Down has to be the silliest and most contrived story about "misunderstood" teens since possibly John Tucker Must Die. This cast is made up of basically good looking people that are well built but have no actual talent. Sean...
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Never Back Down has to be the silliest and most contrived story about "misunderstood" teens since possibly John Tucker Must Die. This cast is made up of basically good looking people that are well built but have no actual talent. Sean Faris, who looks as though they cast him coming out of the doors from an Abercrombie shoot, plays Jake Tyler, a depressed and angry young man who feels guilty over the death of his father. This kid constantly fights and gets arrested, and his widowed mother just can't take it anymore. When Jake's little brother Charlie gets a scholarship to a tennis academy in Florida, his mom doesn't hesitate to accept the offer. In his new school, Jake is almost automatically popular after the student body sees him fighting at his old school. It seems the only way to get popular in that school is to pound on someone's face until they're practically dead. After seeing the video, one of the students challenges Jake to a brawl. Ryan, played by Cam Gigandet, brutally beats Jake and makes remarks about his late father. In anger Jake continues to fight but is then knocked unconscious. Desperate for revenge, he enlists the help of Mr. Miaki, oops I mean Jean Roqua, a mixed martial arts veteran, played by Djimon Hounsou. He becomes even more violent, in the end he beats Ryan practically dead and guess what, the next day he's the most popular kid in the entire blood thirsty school. I tell you this in complete honesty, sitting through this I actually started to wonder if this was made by twelve year olds on crack. Midway through the movie, I thought "okay, it's really cheesy but maybe I can have fun with it" but it doesn't even work as a so -bad-it's-entertaining type film. Not only is the movie ridiculous on so many different levels, it's incredibly violent and unpleasant to watch. Watching young students beaten to a pulp isn't entertaining to me and I really don't think it would satisfy many others. The movie is like some teen knock off of Fight Club, a movie which I was never a big fan of but did somewhat enjoy, but this is just barbaric. I have just about had it with these popularity teen movies where adults pretty much don't exist and even when they do they are always clueless extras in the film. In one scene the sadistic bully's father even comes in and supports this idea to fight with no end. Then in the same scene there is like a ten second back story where we're suddenly suppose to sympathize with this crazy kid because his dad slaps and that's like what you see in all these kind of bully films, where they have a bad home life. So, if I haven't made my self clear yet, no, I'm not recommending this silly garbage to anyone, because it is simply too violent for kids and way to ridiculous for adults.