No Surrender (2011) Mena Suvari, Stephanie Bauder, Serge Houde, Joseph Mesiano Movie Review

No Surrender (2011)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Mena Suvari in No Surrender (2011)

Never Back Down

Having suffered in a violent relationship Amelia (Mena Suvari) has used what she learned from that time to help others, giving talks to women who are going through the same and writing advice on her popular blog. But her success has brought with it a negative as she finds herself with a stalker who seems to be out to kill her. The question is who is it; is it the new man in her life, her ex who has just been paroled or maybe it is a fan of her blog. Refusing to be intimidated by threats from a stranger Amelia won't back down.

Here is a movie which I thought was going to be all about empowering women to take a stand against violence and instead "No Surrender" quickly sets itself up as the sort of romantic fantasy which features a long haired Latin lover that the heroine gets hot and horny with when she finds herself seduced by his Latin charms. What that means is that "No Surrender" is not for me as whilst I actually enjoy the easy to follow nature of TV movies those which partly or fully trade on the fantasy soft eroticism of classic chick literature end up being cheesy and often getting their focus all wrong.

But of course the eroticism is not what "No Surrender" is about, instead this is more a who's behind it movie as we wonder whether it is her ex, the new hunk or a crazed fan who is making life difficult for Amelia. I hate to say this but the movie does a poor job of establishing characters that it is hard to be drawn in to the drama or champion those moments where Amelia makes a stand against mail chauvinism as it is done in a too cheesy, heroic manner.

What this all boils down to is that "No Surrender" could have been a decent TV movie but sadly it ends up becoming cheesy by over emphasising the romance and empowerment side of the story making it feeling forced.


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