Guest Blogger: Austin M

Never Back Down is a movie about a young man, Jake Tyler, who has been haunted by his recent passing of his father. It shows his struggle to accept what has happened and his ability to cope with his actions. He sees troubles in his home town in Iowa but is taken away from the city because of his younger brother, Charlie Tyler, is an exceptionally good athlete at tennis and is accepted into a school in Orlando, Florida. Coming to Orlando brings new scenery and opportunity for Jake. He’s opened up to the underground fighting world and brought into it because of a young lady, Baja Miller and the Big Shot of the school, Ryan McCarthy. Jake seeks revenge to Ryan for the duration of the movie but you see his feelings for revenge change as he grows to be a stronger man through events played out in the movie. Jake Tyler is played by Sean Faris and he does an exceptional job at fitting the characteristics needed to make the character believable. From making you feel the pain from his father’s death to simply feeling the inspiration from his achievements he has throughout the movie is brought through well. He wants to find peace in his life but can’t because of the haunted past he has and also because he feels his mother and brother blame him for his father’s death. When he finally finds the help he needs to bring peace upon himself he realizes what his problems are about and how he should truly deal with them to be productive and not just to solve them for the time being. The movie is a very well life taught lesson, revenge can be solved in better ways then just looking to hurt another person. Seeing the movie you may not understand right away because of the action packed fighting that happens throughout the movie, but looking back you see that his struggles are much like our own. We look to find answers within ourselves to make us better people but in the end many of us just don’t understand how to do that. I have to agree with many of the critics as the movie is a cliché upon itself proving the stereotype about the average high school. However, apart from being an action packed, gory, fight movie, it also does show the struggles many teenagers go through daily. We all have a fight throughout every day, for some it’s because of another person such as in the movie and for others it’s a metaphorical fight with an object that is unseen by anyone but yourself. Although it might not be clear the movie depicts that idea and brings out how you may control your outcome by showing no matter what it is or who it brings into it, it’s always still your fight and you can always control how the end is, by fighting back or solving it in a logical way. Many might see past this but for others it stands out and shows us how to get through the struggles we see in our own lives.