Never Back Down: No Surrender

This is absolutely a paint-by-numbers martial arts competition flick, and standard fare for fans of its star, Michael Jai White. Or JCVD; or Scott Adkins, et. al. But after you've slogged through the main body of the production, the climactic sequence nets you a big overall win for your temporal investment. That reward begins with a truly unique and amusing cameo as a lead-in to the inevitable Big Fight all the typical character arcs and tepid dialog have been setting up. Often it ain't about what they do, but how they do it. Coffee for the closers.

I enjoyed a lot the first one back then, surprisingly even tough it had an Hollywood cast and was very commercial i loved it. Amber Heard... oh boy... lol. The second one came as a good surprise and i enjoyed it again a damn lot. The character of Case Walker was good but so was the other ones as well.

It was inevitable that the third movie would focus on Case, after all Michael Jai White is a huge name in the martial art style and the story of the kids from the second movie was wrapped up.

So when the trailer drop, i was a bit surprised. I mean it didn't looked as good as i had in mind for the next step in Case Walker story. But after having seen the movie, i do feel the movie is a lot better than the trailer. By a lot. Good action, solid character development, the story is engaging even tough a bit less personal than in previous movies. Non the less Michael Jai White make it work super great. The only thing that people may have a grip with, just like i do, is that the movie lacks a great antagonist. The battle is not personal on that level. I don't want to go into a spoiler review so i will not say more, but lets just say that the focus in clearly on the main characters and there relationship together. He does work very good tough.

In the end i had a ton of fun with that movie, its movies like that i am waiting for and i welcome so much the release once in a while. Its like 90s kickboxing movies goodness but at the same time with better direction, better acting, betting production value as a whole.

I do not know the budget for this movie, but for a direct to DVD (not even blu ray, at least here in Quebec) its damn impressive what they accomplished. Fans of martial art action, give it a shot for sure.

What a nice surprise. Michael Jai White did excellent work. He managed to refrain from unnecessary Hollywood-overkill and instead just told a story that flows nicely and rewards the viewer with some spectacular fight scenes. It's actually a bit understated. A rare thing to find these days. I'll give you an example. During the finale of Hard Target 2 all I could think of was: My God, does the shooting never stop? What could have just been a gritty survivalist martial arts movie, had to be made into an over-the-top action vehicle. But it didn't look like the production crew had the money or experience to pull their ideas off. It just ends up looking disappointing. Thankfully, Michael Jai White had no illusions about his project.

Not everything about this movie was top notch. But it just seemed to work for me. I got exactly what I needed. And maybe you will too. I hope MJW will be involved in many more good projects like this one.

1. Big fan of Michael Jai White, which I made clear in my other reviews, especially Blood and Bone, which is a must-see. Called him "the most under-utilized MMA asset in Hollywood."

2. Guess he got tired of waiting for a phone call, because MJW as "director" cast himself in Never Back Down 2 which, for a low budget effort, was a really tight little indie and seems to have given his career a well-deserved second (third?) wind.

3. At 48 years young, MJW is 15 years younger than Steven Seagal, who keeps cranking out Direct To Video productions that should more correctly be called Direct-to-Forget. Except that MJW looks ten years younger than he actually is, and SS looks ten years older than he actually is.

4. This film, NBD3, is unlike anything MJW has done before and even unlike NBD2. It can be considered MJW's personal version of Rocky. (And of course has virtually no connection to NBD1 other than the name.) The script is slow in spots but contains sly humor one does not usually find in these sorts of films. The fight scenes totally rock and there is a new "trope" that MJW (as director) seems to have invented that involves "forecasting" a fight just before it happens, using slo-mo shot in Black and White. Cool!

5. There are two very strange cameos by Tony Jaa and Rampage Jackson which I am still trying to figure out. Ditto for another walk-on by a female Thai martial artist who looked like she weighs 75 pounds soaking wet. And the "big finish" for the story is taken straight from the playbook in Red Belt, another great (and overlooked) MMA film.

RECOMMENDED (!) as both solid entertainment and something different and unexpected. And please remember to see Blood and Bone and NBD2 if you have not already. Also rec Bronson in 1975's HARD TIMES.

It's a great action movie with some amazing action scenes, but the problem is that feeling of there is acting going on , that wont let you to live the movie, I'm not sure if choosing Josh Barnett to play Brody James was a good choice at all, however the other actors did just fine, Michael Jai White did his magic as usual. The whole idea of never back down always impressed me , cool fight scenes and giving moral to the story the action that's going on, and having a goal to achieve , working hard for it, therefore if you are looking for a good action movie this one will be just fine for you, don't expect much.