Teen Jake moves to Florida with his family, where Jake’s anger issues get him pulled into the world of mixed martial arts and illegal fighting.

CRITIQUE

Never Back Down is really just a violent, hard-edged mixed martial arts version of The Karate Kid, from the new kid arriving in town, his clash with a bully, his being taken on by a mentor who teaches him how to fight, his involvement with a pretty blonde, and then the climactic tournament.  Still, though there aren’t any real surprises here, the result hangs together pretty well; director Jeff Wadlow keeps things moving briskly, and for what this is it works.

The main character here is Jake (Sean Faris), who has anger issues thanks to the guilt he feels over the death of his father in a drunk driving accident, leading to Internet footage of a football game fight at his old school that quickly gets him a reputation at his new one, where it turns out everyone is into Fight Club style underground mixed martial arts fighting.  Jake is baited into getting his ass kicked by school pretty boy Ryan, which leads him to join a gym to get stronger so he can take Ryan on again.

Elevating this a lot is the fact that the gym trainer is played by Djimon Hounsou, who brings a lot of class and gravitas to the role.  Also helping is the fact that the movie has a lot of respect for what it takes to be a great mixed martial arts fighter; the training scenes here are tough and impressive, while Faris obviously worked his ass off to get in shape for the part, and it shows.

The fights themselves are convincingly violent, so much so that there are times when it all just feels a little too pointless; nothing here ever seems worth broken ribs or worse.  Still, screenwriter Chris Hauty does a good job finessing the story so that the audience is allowed to voyeuristically watch the fights without their being completely condoned.  Faris does a good job as the lead, reminiscent of a young Tom Cruise at times, while Amber Heard (memorable in Pineapple Express) is solid as the girl.  By the end, it’s all very formulaic, but fans of the sport will find things to like here.

THE VIDEO

Never Back Down is presented in anamorphic widescreen, 2.4:1.  Though the visuals sometimes have a washed-out look, they generally work well, and the transfer is good.

THE AUDIO

Never Back Down is presented in English 5.1 Dolby Digital.  Dialogue, music and sound effects come through clear.  There are English and Spanish subtitles.

THE EXTRAS

There are Two Versions of the film; one apparently has some extra punches and sound effects, though it is only 16 seconds longer.

There’s a Commentary featuring director Jeff Wadlow, star Sean Faris and writer Chris Hauty that is chatty and fairly solid of its type.

There are 13 minutes of Deleted Scenes that are all pretty negligible.

There is a 65-minute Fight Commentary by Wadlow, Director of Photographer Lukas Ettlin and Fight Choreographer Damen Caro that has them talking over the fight footage, which they pause and rewind as they talk about putting the scenes together.  It’s fairly informative for those into this kind of thing.

Mix It Up:  Bringing MMA to the Big Screen is a 10-minute piece that looks at the intensive 4-month training that the main actors went through to get them into fighting shape and to learn the choreography.

There are three more Short Fighting Featurettes totaling about 5 minutes, that are basically just edited-down versions of the longer piece.

FINAL THOUGHT

There’s not a lot of real originality here, though given that this works well enough to merit a look.