Parents' Guide to Never Back Down

Fight movies have their place in cinematic history (Rocky, anyone?); done right, they manage to capture the humanity in the brutality and the poetry in the punch, but this formulaic film doesn't. In Never Back Down, the cuts are so quick that you can't appreciate any technique. And though, like better sports films, the film does try to reveal the internal struggles that fuel the physical ones, it does so with overly broad strokes. There's little nuance and so many fight scenes that when the movie finally gets to the big "beatdown," it's almost anticlimactic—it just feels like yet another battle. The movie is also riddled with clichés; there's a supportive but unimportant girlfriend, a funny sidekick, a nagging mom, generic mantras ("Control the outcome"), and even a race between the mentor and the mentee that's a straight rip-off of Rocky.

Director Jeff Wadlow does manage to drum up some excitement by letting the action unspool with a light touch. The script isn't memorable, but the dialogue is believable, and star Faris is blessed with an easy smile and a likable swagger. And Hounsou, though he delivers a one-note performance and feels tokenized among the otherwise all-White cast, is still fun to watch.