Bullet Points: Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown

I described 2008’s Never Back Down as an MTV style action movie as high school students competed in a mixed martial arts tournament. Fast forward to 2016’s Never Back Down: No Surrender and you have a pure mixed martial arts movie with veteran action star Michael Jai White tangling with a former Ultimate Fighter Josh Barnett.

2011’s Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown proved to be the perfect bridge between the original and the third installment in what has become a mixed martial arts franchise. Never Back Down 2 takes the story to the next logical level as we have graduated from the world of high school and are now entering college…

• Big Men on Campus: The movie opens with an introduction to four of our main characters. First there is Mike Stokes (Dean Geyer), an accomplished high school wrestler who is more than happy to be moving on to college and away from his family after things got weird when his dad left his mom for another man. Next up is boxer Zack Gomes (Alex Meraz). Zack is delivered a major blow outside the ring when he learns that due to a partially detached retina doctors are advising that he stop boxing or risk losing the use of his injured eye. Third is a real hoss named Tim Newhouse (played by Ultimate Fighter Todd Duffee). Tim’s mom is having trouble with the bills and keeping a roof over her family’s head. Tim offers to drop out of school and work full time to help with the bills, but his mom will have none of it, instead she takes a job as a waitress at a strip club. Finally is the absolute worst human being in the movie… Justin Epstein (played by the similarly named Scottie Epstein).  Justin works at a comic book shop, he gets rejected by girls and beat up by bullies. Watching this I feel like I was supposed to empathize with the Justin character, but I couldn’t bring myself to doing that. Maybe it was his creepy vibe or stupid looking hair or the fact that he looked like he was in his thirties and completely out of place in the movie.

• Business Major: The one character who returned for the sequel was Max Cooperman (Evan Peters). Max has gone from being a mixed martial artist wannabe in the original film, to a Dana White/MMA promoter wannabe in the sequel. Max is promoting The Beatdown this year. He’s got a viral campaign, including a countdown clock and a hype video (using footage from the original movie), The problem is Max doesn’t have all 16 fighters lined up… enter Zack and Mike. The two MMA hopefuls meet for the first time in Max’s dorm room and after a demonstration of their skills, Max realizes they are going to need some serious training if they are going to be good enough for The Beatdown so he directs them to Case Walker (Michael Jai White). Walker was one of the hottest fighters in the world of MMA before some poor decision making at a bar one night cost him his career and sent him to prison for a few years. Now he’s living in an RV that is parked in an empty lot and training hopeful mixed martial artists to earn a living. When Zack and Mike arrive they meet Case and his two current students Tim Newhouse and Justin Epstein.  And before you know it we’ve got ourselves a training montage!

• The Old College Try: Mike, Zack, Justin and Tim are all making great progress under the tutelage of Case Walker. But things start falling apart when the local fuzz shows up and starts harassing Case Walker. One cop in particular (played by Rus Blackwell) takes extreme pleasure in making life miserable for Case, who was still on parole for his time in the big house and really was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Why did the cop take so much delight in ruining Case’s life? Maybe it is because he is racist, maybe it is because he is an asshole, maybe it is because he is a racist asshole. Anyway you slice it, the cops evict Case from the lot he had been living in and things are not looking good for Case or his pupils… But wait this is not the time to give up (or back down), this is the time to give it the old college try! Tim Newhouse talks to his boss and his boss agrees to let them turn some of his unused warehouse space into a dojo. This opens the door for a remodeling montage and before you know it Case Walker’s Combat Club is open for business.

• Double Not So Secret Probation:  Things once again go down hill and there is one person to blame… Justin Epstein. I should point out that Justin does shave off his stupid looking hair, but a bald Justin looks like he is in his forties. Seriously he looks older than Case Walker, but that may not be saying much since I’m pretty sure Michael Jai White has the fountain of youth in his backyard. But hair or no hair, Justin is a pain in everyone’s ass. He is constantly needling Tim about his mom working at a strip club, he tries to stir shit up between Zack and Mike since there is some definite flirting going on between Mike and Zack’s girlfriend Eve (played by the gorgeous Jillian Murray) and in general just creeping everyone the eff out. But Justin takes things too far when he uses the fighting skills that Case has bestowed upon him and goes after the guys who regularly bullied him. Now he doesn’t just send them a message he does some major assault and battery on these guys… when he shows up at Case’s door afterwards covered in blood, Case immediately kicks him out of the Combat Club and tells him he never wants to see him again. Justin would come back when Case was gone, plant a gun in the RV and then call the cops on Case knowing when the cops come they’ll find the gun and Case will be back in prison for violating his parole. Absolutely diabolical! This does nicely set up Tim, Zack and Mike all wanting to take down the traitorous Justin as part of The Beatdown.

I really do need to give major props to Scottie Epstein. I can not recall the last time I genuinely hated a movie villain the way I hated Scottie’s portrayal of Justin. I was counting down the minutes until he got his much needed and much deserved comeuppance. The other stand out of the film was the star, Michael Jai White. White’s years of experience brought the action movie legitimacy the original was lacking.

One thing this review won’t be lacking is some Bonus Bullet Points…25

• Directorial Debut: Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown was the directorial debut of Michael Jai White. White would go on to star in and direct Never Back Down: No Surrender as well.
• Factoids #1: Todd Duffee, who played Tim Newhouse, holds the record for fastest knockout in UFC history at 7 seconds. Fans of The Simpsons may also like to know that he is nicknamed “The Duff Man”.

• Bizarre Love Triangle: I felt the whole love triangle subplot with Mike, Eve and Zack was all just a red herring of sorts so the audience believed this one was going to end with a battle over the lovely Eve and make Justin’s Judas-like actions all the more shocking. But the love triangle itself really didn’t pan out… Zack was the one who called things off and it wasn’t until the breakup that Eve and Mike acted on their feelings for one another (translation = they get it on in Mike’s dorm room). But Zack is living it up and loving the female attention being in The Beatdown is bringing him, he even bangs one of the strippers at the club Tim’s mom works at… and he bangs her ON STAGE!
• Factoids #2: Dean Geyer and Jillian Murray are a real life couple. They were also the unfortunate victims of a hacking earlier this year. (translation = a video of them getting it on leaked on the Internet).