Tag: Sahajak Boonthanakit

I have still never seen the UFC themed movie Never Back Down. I barely even know it exists.

But I did watch the sequel, Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown. When I rented it from Blockbuster (old movie alert), I didn’t see the 2 on the title, just saw that Michael Jai White was involved (and it was his first time directing!) and decided to give it a shot. I don’t think I needed to see the first film to get it, so all was well.

And now, years later, we have Never Back Down: No Surrender, the third awaited Never Back Down film. This one is starring and directed again by Michael Jai White, only his second time at the head of a movie.

And again, that is why I am watching this movie. White makes me excited, what can I say?

Has Michael Jai White ever turned down a role that lets him take his shirt off? I think not.

The third film takes place some amount of time after the last film, and things are different now. I think. Case Walker (Michael Jai White) is thinking about getting back into the ring and slumming it out on his own. But that is ridiculous, he is a great fighter and shouldn’t be worried about minor scuffles.

He runs into an old friend, Brody James (Josh Barnett), who is an elite fighter as well and Brody convinces Case to join with his gym and get back into the big ring. So he does sure, no pressure.

Speaking of pressure, they decide to go to Thailand to train and fight. The PFC is holding their big match there in a month or so, James vs Caesar Braga (Nathan Jones), a scary looking man with anger issues and a criminal record. Of course! The whole thing is being promoted by the legendary Hugo Vega (Esai Morales), who cares only about profits. Hell, they even allow performance enhancing drugs in their league, no judgement.

And of course, Case is just there to help James train. He doesn’t care about getting on the ticket. But when people find out he is there, he gets popular again. They hear about how great of a fighter he still is. He gets a viral video. So things begin to happen to get him on in the ring as well, no matter who gets hurt along the way.

Also featuring Gillian White as our necessary love interest/publicist, Stephen Quadros as a trainer, Amarin Cholvibul, Dan Renalds, and JeeJa Yanin as lesser fighters in the gym, and Sahajak Boonthanakit as the only press person to talk.

That dude is like a head taller than the other dude. That is a head worth of ‘roids.

Never Back Down: No Surrender is not going to win any awards. It won’t be nominated for awards either, unless there are UFC film awards, because I don’t know how many of those come out in a year. This film is not the amazing, wonderful, tear inducing, Warrior. No, this is the third film in a straight to DVD UFC series.

So by its own standards, it is just going for some entertainment, with some decent fights. The fights are decent, and the entertainment is also light. That’s right, just light entertainment.

If the movie was less serious or more comedic, then I probably would have thought it was okay. The way our main character got out of a serious conundrum by the end was pretty smart, but still feels disingenuous at the same time. Our hero was against the fight he was forced to take and didn’t want to do it. But he ends up still doing it, just in a weird way. It gives the film a final fight that they advertise on the cover and poster, but in reality, it shouldn’t have happened at all.

I can honestly say I don’t remember a lot about the last movie. But I remember smiling more and thinking it was at least fun. This one was just mostly awkward, with some bad acting and an occasional decent to watch fight.

Owen Wilson. Action Thriller. Owen Wilson. Action Thriller.

No matter how many times I say it, I cannot picture this man seriously in an action thriller. My mind cannot wrap itself around that concept. It just doesn’t make sense.

Owen Wilson and comedy? Sure, that is pretty standard. Owen Wilson and slightly dramatic/romantic roles? He has been making those now, especially with Woody Allen. Owen Wilson and action comedy? Yeah, he did Shanghai Noon!

But I feel like I can’t ever take just his face seriously. I can’t imagine him running from people trying to kill him and it not be an amusing situation. I can’t imagine him trying to protect loved ones in a real life or death situation.

So, honestly, I am expecting No Escape to be a satire of some sort. Or a secret parody of the action thriller genre. That is the only way I can go through my day without breaking down, knowing that this movie is coming out.

He never listened, but eventually his face really did freeze in place like that.

Economy is tough, so sometimes even the most qualified of people can find themselves with a family to support but no job. That is why Jack Dwyer (Owen Wilson) is taking his wife, Annie (Lake Bell), and two daughters (Sterling Jerins, Claire Geare) to Asia. Where in Asia? Eh, South East Asia. Not important.

They meet Hammond (Pierce Brosnan), who is Australian, or British. Basically someone who speaks English from not-America. He offers them a ride to the hotel and is just a fun guy, if not too inappropriate for their family.

Well, things don’t work well in the hotel. TV is out. Phone is out. No cell phone signal. Shit.

Even worse, the next day in the streets, Jack overcomes an apparent riot in the streets. A bunch of people going to war against the police. That is extremely inconvenient. He is supposed to start his job today, but this large group of people with bats, machetes, and guns are running around killing white people.

Gosh, this really isn’t a good move for their family.

Also starring Sahajak Boonthanakit as Kenny Rogers!

“It won’t be scary if you just assume you are getting pushed violently into a pool 80 feet below.”

See, now I know why this movie can make sense. It isn’t an action thriller at all. No, it is also not a strange satire. It is a straight up horror film. First scene, very stylized, shows the political assassination happening. Then there is a nice dull bore of the family flying over and getting settled. But once the riots start, my heart never stops racing. The music, the violence, everything was just so terrifying. Maybe more so because I too am white and I too have a family to protect.

It makes sense for it to have such a strong horror action feel. The director is John Erick Dowdle who has also directed Quarantine, Devil, and As Above, So Below. Say what you will about the quality of those films. They are all definitely horror. It was completely unexpected to find myself that scared throughout the film, but it happened and it was extremely effective.

A weird thing about this film is the awkward lengths it went to avoid saying where the hell they were. Any time they attempted to get close, it was always just vague “Asia” instead of a country name. It was annoying and took me out of the film every time they were purposefully vague. It was filmed in Thailand, but eventually we find out that the country is attached to Vietnam (which Thailand is not). That leaves Cambodia or Laos. They apparently tried to make it a made up country, but then used upside-down Cambodian language on text (which they did not like), so Cambodia it is!

Back to the film. Wilson plays an every man type of role who is just doing whatever he can to protect his family. He is extremely relatable in this film. He is able to appropriately pull off the “constant freaking out, while also trying to calm down his kids” speech down. Yes, it is still full of his unique (bad?) whisper calmness, but it seems right.

Bell doesn’t play just a typical screaming mother role. She takes an active part in their escape, putting herself in danger several times, including a quite graphic scene. And Brosnan wasn’t on screen a lot, but he was smooth as fuck and a strange pseudo-hero.

Honestly, this film has some issues. Some strange character decisions, one scene of very shit CGI, some boredom in the beginning, and the awkward country-evasion part. But when it gets going, it never stops and it did what it set off to do really well.

I expected I would hate No Escape but it really felt like I too was in the middle of a country uprising and on the run. It was refreshing to have the USA/UK kind of be the bad guy, while also not getting too preachy about the subject. And shit. It was scary.