Issue 037
May 2008
The Karate Kid Does MMA
It’s a story as old as time itself, or at least 1984. The new kid in town, in dire need of a father figure, instead finds himself the recipient of a sound thrashing from the local bad ass. He turns to a slightly enigmatic martial arts instructor who teaches him how to throw hands then in the big finale he gets to dispense a whipping to his tormentor.
No, it’s not The Karate Kid, it’s Never Back Down, a rougher, tougher update of the Ralph Macchio movie. Jake Tyler (Sean Faris) is the new kid on the block who falls afoul of local tough guy and nut job Ryan (Cam Gigandet), whose hobbies include organising fights at his beachfront mansion. Amber Heard plays Baja, the dual purpose eye candy and love interest, while Djimon Hounsou, from Gladiator, is the Mr Miyagi figure of Jean Roqua; although he’s not a janitor but runs the 365 Combat Club where he give lessons in life and submission wrestling.
Never Back Down belongs in the Guilty Pleasures section of the DVD store. Sure, it’s cheesy, you know the plot before the opening credits have finished and it doesn’t do MMA any favours, but it doesn’t aim too high and so hits its targets squarely on the chin. Sadly, like too many MMA movies, it involves unlicensed fighting that perpetuates the myths about the sport being No Holds Barred and an underground activity populated by lowlifes. The climactic dust-up occurs at The Beatdown, a winner-takes-all tournament held on the dance floor of a nightclub while the party people cheer the combatants on. True to life? Not in the slightest.
Lead actor Sean Faris looks uncannily like a young Tom Cruise, although it requires a considerable suspension of disbelief to accept that any of the principal characters could still be in high school. Cam Gigandet, from The O.C. (ask your girlfriend), reveals his wrinkles every time he smiles, while one lesson seems to involve all the hot girls wandering around in bikinis. Presumably that class is oversubscribed.
The fight choreography is the work of Damon Caro, who worked on The Bourne Supremacy and Fight Club, and Jonathan Eusebio, whose credits include Daredevil and Fearless. Erik Paulson served as MMA Technical Advisor and while Paulson is well known for being a one-man reference book of submission techniques, the moves on display in Never Back Down are your bread and butter submissions – triangles, armbars, kneebars. In true action movie fashion, the characters have to basically be pounded through the floor before they get knocked out and even though much of the time they aren’t wearing gum shields, somehow everyone has perfect teeth. Anyone who’s ever seen the Sonny Chiba cult classic The Street Fighter will appreciate the X-ray shots that show a fighter’s ribs getting busted.
Never Back Down is not about MMA the sport, since the fights are all unsanctioned and take place in backyards, nightclubs or parking lots, but as action movies go, it punches above its weight.
Never Back Down is in cinemas now
