Overall: 3/5
Director: Jeff Wadlow
Genre: action | drama | sport
Running time: 110'

Recycling ideas from 20 years ago in any chosen genre and dressing them up for the current fashion has always been a dependable moneymaking formula for Hollywood. After milking the best out of teen comedies, musicals and various 70s and 80s cult TV series, the studios are confident enough to put together a picture revolving around angry young men, revenge and martial arts and the result on display here is as refreshing as it is predictable.

As a throwback to the 80s, when Jean-Claude Van Damme was the resident idol for many a teenage boy and Bruce Lee was still a legend with a dazzling halo, Never Back Down is modestly endearing. Indeed, its story is quite the unimaginative reshuffle of The Karate Kid or the many straight-to-video pieces such as No Retreat, No Surrender, and summons the same emotional punch that sends the pulse of a 14-year-old lad racing. There is humiliation, there is a wise master teaching the protagonist how to live and fight and a climatic showdown where the bad guy gets what he deserves.

The dressing up of the said assortment of cliches per the specifications of 2008 is so preposterous that it is entertaining. Never Back Down looks like a cross between The O.C. and Fight Club; even the movie's baddie Ryan is played by Cam Gigandet, who showed just how bad a character he can play in The O.C. When he is not humiliating macho wannabes, he is living a life adorned with fast cars, poolside parties and gorgeous girls. However, he makes the mistake of beating the living daylights out of our protagonist, named Jake (Sean Faris), in front of a massive audience of their schoolmates.

From then on, revenge is just about the sole thing on Jake's mind, with assorted distractions filling up the white spots in the plot canvass. There is the issue with the father who has died because Jake let him drive while drunk, there is the tennis-prodigy younger brother who looks up to Jake and thinks that being in a fight is the coolest thing ever, there is the geeky sidekick who takes Jake to a martial arts school, there is the wise combat master who forbids Jake to fight outside the gym, there is the remorse and soul searching after said ban is summarily broken.

There is also Ryan's girlfriend (Amber Heard), who fancies Jake. The latter is not hard to believe, as Faris looks uncannily like a young Tom Cruise and projects enough charisma to get propelled to the waiting list of the next batch of young stars. He is matched quite literally blow-for-blow by Gigadnet, who is admirably and exhilaratingly convincing as the sadistic alpha male of the school whom everybody would love to beat up if they only could.

The martial arts instructor who makes it all happen for Jake is played by Djimon Hounsou with authority and menace, which we are now pretty much taking for granted in any film he graces. He comes about as a slightly more cheerful and forgiving cousin of Chiwetel Ejiofor's character in David Mamet's Redbelt and effortlessly fleshes out a character who is almost too good for the movie he is in.

Some would complain that the fight scenes are shot so lovingly that they glorify violence, but I suppose they have to look that way in order to have an impact on the senses of the young audiences of today. They are impressive in a way that a stylised music video is; they could not make you feel good or bad or care too much for anyone involved, but they manage to wake up the teenager in you.