Netflix Catalogue: 'Never Back Down'

Today I'll be taking a look at another film in the Netflix catalogue: 'Never Back Down'.
Released in 2008, this film featured a fresh face in Sean Faris, a familiar face in Cam Gigandet, and the girl who seemed to be in every film featuring teenagers, Amber Heard. The film's main story focuses on troubled teen Jake (Sean Faris) as his family moves to Florida and he gets drawn into the underground fighting world.


When this was first released, and I was working in a well known rental shop, I took one look at the cover and dismissed it as garbage. When I finally got around to recording it on MTV at some point during 2010, I loved it. I sat down to re-watch it on Netflix to make sure everything was fresh in my head for a review and to see if my opinion had changed at all.

Never Back Down is basically an updated 'Karate Kid' story, which is fine with me because I loved Karate Kid. It features a pretty decent soundtrack with the likes of Rise Against, Red Jumpsuit, Kanye West etc, and also contains a lot of '80's movie' ingredients:

• Set in high school
• Getting the shit kicked out of you so you can go improve yourself
• Training montages
• Becoming buddies with the character no one can take seriously
• Bonding with your mentor
• Having a foot race eerily reminiscent of Rocky vs Apollo Creed from Rocky 3

So it sticks to the tried and tested formula, but it works. Sure it's not going to be a blockbuster movie, but it is going to entertain those that watch. For extra bonus points the film has Djimon Hounsou as the mentor, adding yet another great performance to his ever growing list.

So if you have a Netflix account, or just using the trial, then give this film a chance, you may just love it.

Pixel Punk's verdict is a strong 8 out of 10.