'Never Back Down'

Rating:

BY JAN STUART | jan.stuart@newsday.com

March 14, 2008

What is a teen football star to do when he's ended his final game in a brawl, and mom is moving the family from Iowa to the bimbo belt of Florida? If his name is Jake Tyler, he packs his glory days into a box marked "useless junk," loads it into a van and take his fighting fists on the road.

A box labeled "useless junk" is a risky recurring prop to insert into an instantly disposable sports drama like "Never Back Down," a bash-a-thon for boneheads that aspires to be the "Fast and the Furious" of the mixed martial arts set.

Sean Faris affects a downbeat Tom Cruise attitude as Jake, a hotheaded school athlete simmering with guilt and grief over the accidental death of his dad. With his working knowledge of "The Iliad," the cornfed Jake is out of his element in Orlando, depicted here as a vast Hooters theme park teeming with fight-craving mobs and nubile nymphets smooching in bubble baths.

Pretty quickly, however, Jake's notorious football antics make him the talk of his new town and a target for the school's star ruffian, Ryan McCarthy (Cam Gigandet), who never misses an opportunity to show off his extreme-fighting elan and Abercrombie abs. Fired up by Ryan's taunts, Jake seeks out trainer Jean Roqua ( Djimon Hounsou) to school him in the fine points of mixed martial arts.

"Never Back Down" serves up the usual numbing admixture of pounding rock ditties, athlete-in-training montages (much lifting of cinderblocks and glugging of raw eggs) and kissy-kissy with the ostensible object of Jake's affection, Baja (Amber Heard, revealing a talent as big as an 8-by-10 resumé photo). Jake's deepest love, of course, is saved for his trainer, with whom he sheds big buddy tears while bonding over the pain of family loss.

NEVER BACK DOWN (PG-13). Extreme martial arts and dark family skeletons vie for center stage in this interminable action drama. Never see movies that give stupid macho advice in their titles. 1:53 (mature thematic material involving intense sequences of fighting/violence, some sexuality, partying and language - all involving teens). At area theaters.