Review: Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown

The plot concerns an angry Michael Jai White (as an ex-MMA star whose career died after some law-related troubles) tutoring a ragtag bunch of youngsters in MMA fighting. They each have their own issues that have brought them here. For instance, Scottie Epstein is a comic book store nerd tired of being pummelled, Todd Duffie (and his giant brick of a head) fights for money so that his mother can stop stripping (!). Joining them are a boxer (Alex Meraz) who fights despite an eye injury that could worsen, and fellow Uni student Dean Geyer as a brooding wrestler with issues stemming from his dad finding a new passion...for other dudes. Epstein generally grates on everyone’s nerves, whilst Geyer and Meraz are no bosom buddies since Meraz’s girl Jillian Murray has started snuggling up to Geyer. Uber-geek teen internet fight impresario Evan Peters turns up to tell of a big ‘best of the best’ fight tournament called The Beatdown, involving 16 fighters and a $10,000 cash prize for the winner (something that even the medically risky Meraz can’t turn down). A giant speed bump or two occurs when Epstein is scolded by White for being reckless and he abandons ship. Meanwhile, White’s troubled past comes back to haunt him, and potentially put an end to everyone’s training right when they need it most.

 

The original “Never Back Down” wasn’t much good, a third-rate “Karate Kid” with Djimon Hounsou stealing the show as the Mr. Miyagi replacement, and Cam Gigandet glowering menacingly as the bully...‘coz that’s all he knows how to do as an actor. This 2011 direct-to-DVD sequel immediately let me know it would likely be a better film: It marks the directorial debut of Michael Jai White, and White also plays the mentor role. It’s still not a terribly good film, but White (a genuine bad-arse presence on screen) is excellent and the fights are good, if overly reliant on the gogoplata. Yes, I love The Undertaker too (OK, so this is MMA, but I don’t watch MMA, so for me, it’s an Undertaker wrestling move, damnit), but there’s more to MMA fighting than just the gogoplata, Mr. White, much as I love seeing it. Truth be told, I prefer Jujitsu, Aikido, and kickboxing for my martial arts.

 

The most interesting casting comes in the form of Dean Geyer, best-known internationally for appearing on “Glee”, but best-known here in Australia for being a South African-born, also-ran on “Australian Idol”, who made quite a successful switch to TV acting (and an even more successful attempt at hiding his Seth Effriken accent. Bloody convincing, actually). I honestly never expected to see Geyer (who also affects a fairly convincing Yank accent here) in something like this, but apparently there is martial arts prowess in his family, and he’s acceptable in the lead. Personally, I think he looks like a hundred other generic ‘hot’ leading men heartthrobs, but he might break out from the pack one day, who knows. He’s certainly a better actor than singer, but...yeah, not much of an achievement, really. He looks convincing enough in the fights (apparently he was taught by his dad, but that doesn’t mean he does his own stunts. Looks like, it, though), but the romantic subplot involving him and Jillian Murray is appallingly botched by writer Chris Hauty (who did the paint-by-numbers original). Ms. Murray doesn’t help, but Hauty, in a writing miscalculation makes this girl into a complete cow (basically making fun of Geyer for having a gay dad- nice!), from moment one, so that no matter what happens subsequently, I just never bought it at all. The development of their relationship is sorely lacking anyway. I did learn something from Mr. Hauty, however. Apparently the way to get into a girl’s pants is to tell gay jokes (This is some seriously weird-arse flirting right here). I’ll have to remember that one.

 

The film also chooses the absolute wrong person to be the film’s turncoat villain. Given he starts out as a comic book store geek (and looks like a mini C.C. De Ville), the transformation from geek to fighter to creepy villain is waaaaay too rapid. Once the guy shaves his head, it’s like he becomes a completely different character, and shaving his head and tattooing his name in large on his chest is no help. Epstein? Sorry, but Epstein from “Welcome Back Kotter” was more of a badass than this twerp (Fun fact: Mr. Epstein is indeed an MMA fighter in real-life and I’m sure he can kick my arse. He still fails to convince me of that here, however). Given that Geyer essentially steals his girlfriend, why wasn’t the Alex Meraz character made the turncoat? His spinning arse-kicker character is much more of a dangerous-looking fighter.

 

Then there is the matter of one Evan Peters, who apparently reprises his role from the original, but I barely remembered him. He goes out of his way to make you remember him here, though, with an insufferably camera-hogging turn that White really ought to have reined in. He’s awful. Perhaps the fact that he was acting in a film with Cam Gigandet last time meant that his awfulness was less obvious than it is here, but my god this kid is ridiculously annoying. Special mention must be made of Todd Duffie and his giant freakin’ Ted Cassidy meets (Impact Wrestling star) Matt Morgan head. Seriously was there a lantern jaw convention in town during filming? This dude could be the unholy love-child of The Giant Gonzalez and that big kid from “That’s What I Am” (Which, if you count Randy Orton’s appearance in that film, makes for four wrestling references in this review so far. Woo-hoo! A new record for me!). Michael Jai White, as I said earlier, is a badass (Just watch “Undisputed II”- one of the best fight movies I’ve ever seen, “Black Dynamite”, or “Blood and Bone” for proof). Not only does he deserve to be in the Terry Crews role in “The Expendables” movies, but was “Spawn” really such a giant flop that he has to suffer in B-movie land forever? The man owns the screen here, and not just because he’s the director. Hell, he needed to be in more of the film, to be honest. He might be a slight egotist (top-billing? Really?), but nonetheless the man oozes charisma and badass presence to the point of devouring the scenery and making it ‘tap out’. He’s got ‘it’, whatever ‘it’ may be. His character also inspires the funniest line in the film from Geyer; ‘He’s gotta be the worst role model since ‘Sweep the leg’!’. This is one angry black man, and then some. But I ain’t sayin’ it to his face, he’d rearrange mine. He doesn’t get in on the action a whole helluva lot, but he’s magnificent in action. One-sided of course, but this is “Black Dynamite”, after all. Meanwhile, I’m not in the business of dispensing advice to racist cops, but if you’re gonna pick on a black man, it’s probably best not to choose “Black Dynamite”. I think he could legit introduce your own foot to your arse. It did, however, make me wonder what a Rodney King biopic starring Michael Jai White would be like.

 

White the director, however, overindulges on some camera trickfuckery at times, though eventually he lets the fighting (from the same choreographer as “Undisputed III: Redemption”, by the way) do most of the talking. Watching Meraz’s spinning in particular, is wonderful to behold. I do have to pull him up on one thing, however: Is an unwillingness to tap out really all that admirable? Wouldn’t it be better for Geyer not to get into the predicament in the first place? Mind you, we’re talking about a film where a young man wishes out loud that his mother worked in a strip club like Duffie’s. What kind of sick fuck wants to see their mother on a stripper pole? I did like, though that these guys all basically hated each other, hated their sensei, he hated them- it made for an amusing wrinkle to the multi-character “Best of the Best” formula. I did not like that most of them had the ugliest tattoos I’ve seen this side of Wes Briscoe, however (That’s five wrestling references, folks!). By the way, the strippers don’t actually strip in this. Is it true that strippers don’t strip anymore? I haven’t seen a stripper get naked in a movie in ages, it seems. The only (slight) nudity we get from one of them is in a sex scene. WHAT?

 

Overall, this is more lively, violent, and watchable than the original, if no less clichéd. Michael Jai White’s strong presence in front of the camera helps a lot, but he’s not in it as much as I would’ve liked.

 

Rating: C+