Raze

The forced-to-fight genre, everything from THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME to THE RUNNING MAN to BATTLE ROYALE, it's a story that's been told hundreds of times. In RAZE, 50 women have been abducted by rich folks and forced to fight in brutal 1-on-1 matches to the death (in a white tank top and grey sweatpants). The main thing of note here is the casting of Zoë Bell in the lead, best known as Uma Thurman's stunt double in the KILL BILL films and later on-screen roles in Tarantino's DEATH PROOF and THE HATEFUL EIGHT. One fun surprise is reuniting Bell with DEATH PROOF co-star Rosario Dawson, who has a small role as one of the abducted women. You also get Doug Jones (HELLBOY, THE SHAPE OF WATER) and Sherilyn Fenn (TWIN PEAKS, OF MICE AND MEN) as the villainous rich folks organizing the fights and abductions. It's a pretty routine action film of this sort, but it does offer some solid action sequences and was well crafted given its limited budget. My recommendation would be to watch Rob Zombie's under appreciated forced-to-fight film, 31 (sure it's a retread of stuff he's already done, but much like his music, it's a pretty good song he keeps doing over and over again).

It is really good. Unfortunately a lot of people seem to watch it with the completely wrong ideas about it in their head. This movie is not about empowered women and it doesn't make any political statements. It shows how women from different walks of life act when thrown into an impossible situation. For this the organization who kidnaps them chose women who know how to fight or else the whole setup wouldn't make much sense. But it is not like your regular 90 minutes martial arts flick. There is nothing heroic about it. The directing, the lighting, the soundtrack - that's all closer to what you see in horror movies and they way they went about making this film reminded me a little bit of Saw.

I gave it 7/10. The acting is damn good and the general mood of the movie is dark. The fighting isn't glorified and flashy like in your regular action movie where male fighters have to fight in a to-the-death tournament. It is extreme, unpretty and direct. If they had given the story a little bit more room for getting into the surroundings and the organization who's holding the fights I'd probably have given it an 8. A few things were to compressed in my opinion.

This is without a doubt one of the most pointless movies that I have seen. The storyline is nearly non-existing. Basically this is a movie about a group of women held captive and forced to fight one another to the death, under the threat of harm and death to their loved ones.

And that was it.

Sure, there were some good enough fight scenes throughout the movie, but it hardly made up for the total and complete lack of a proper storyline.

And truth be told, I actually fell asleep during the movie, only to wake up because of some loud noise from the movie. And even having slept for a part of the movie, I was missing not a single beat of what was going on; women having to kill each other.

While the cast were doing good enough jobs with their given roles, they just had nothing to work with and whatever was there was stacked against them. The characters were meaningless and without any background stories, which ultimately made you distance yourself from them, as there was nothing to care about or anything to be drawn in by.

There are some fairly brutal moments throughout the movie, but again, this does absolutely nothing to make up for the horrible lack of a proper storyline.

All in all, then "Raze" is a pointless movie experience about violence amongst captive women. I believe if you are a fan of anyone on the cast list that you might find some enjoyment in this movie. Otherwise, then I find it next to impossible to find any reason for recommending you wasting your time on this.

This was a great action/horror flick with excellent acting and many touching scenes as well as some gruesome ones. The characters bring you inside them and you feel the psychological torture that precedes the physical one. Each fight scene is unique and the dialogue is superbly crafted. You can feel the female touch in the making of this movie as the actors are not presented as titillation but as human beings undergoing the most extreme situation. I wish there was more elaboration on the purpose of the cult. It reminded me a bit of the atmosphere of Martyrs, bringing that sense of intrigue and shock. I would definitely see a sequel.

My quick rating - 6,0/10. A different look on the women behind bars story. These women are held captive and forced to fight to the death in an underground "dungeon"? That is what it looked like. Very brutal and quite depressing movie showing the violent side of the fighting coupled with the bonds this women create before they must face the inevitable if they win. They will have to fight each other. Pretty decent acting for the very limited budget. Didn't know who Zoe Bell was before (the main character) but she did a good job. Also to note, a very good ending that may or may not leave the door open for a sequel. Fighting scenes are not for the squemmish but beyond that, nice diamond in the unheard of rough.