A movie can take the hormonal amplification of high school years to funny and strange extremes. Never Back Down instead does this by dehumanizing its characters and assuming all teenagers are mouth-breathing sheep. Its completely offensive teen-sploitation garbage. The hook of being a mixed- martial-arts Karate Kid isnt enough when the movie lacks what made The Karate Kid work: humility. Things are so bad for Jake Tyler (Sean Faris) in his Orlando, Florida hood that even the coolest house party of the year guarantees violence. (If you didnt come here to fight, why did you come here? Jakes nemesis Ryan (Cam Gigandet) asks at one of those fight parties.) This degrading view of teenage norms allows director Jeff Wadlow to get off on multitudes of girls in bikinis cheering while guys beat on each other. Its an insult to adolescent desires: Everyone at the school is a contemptible, bloodthirsty ghoul whose only hope is theyll see their classmates decimated on YouTube.
Fariss screen presence relies on his physical resemblance to Ralph Macchio and Tom Cruise (maybe he can try an Outsiders remake). Though the films dialogue sometimes resists cliche and Wadlow at least tries for visual flourish, the movies attitude is so ugly and uninteresting, Never Back Down insults its very target audience.
This article appears in Mar 13-19, 2008.