DVD Review: Raze

By Brad Henderson

An all-girl fighting movie with Zoe Bell? Hell yes! Is it good? Meh . . . There are many great qualities that Raze does have so let’s start with those.

In Raze women are pitted against one another for an unknown reason. The only thing they do know is that they have to fight and stay alive. There have been 50 women chosen but this quickly dwindles down to one. All of these women have something to live for: family. If they don’t comply with the rules and regulations their families will suffer the consequences and if they lose the fight, their families are killed off as well. With me so far? I know, it sounds freaking fantastic.

As time goes on some of the girls begin to bond with one another and try to formulate a plan in order to get out of this ordeal. Two girls are picked to fight as the clock ticks away. Only one girl comes back and she waits to fight again. We are mostly focused on Sabrina (Bell) who is tough as hell and is determined to win or get out of this place alive. All we know is that this “tournament” has been going on for a long time (so we are told) and whoever wins gets all the marbles and gets to walk away from it all. Still awesome.

Sabrina is faced with many obstacles during her stay at this not-so-fun resort. Does she let her family die, kill her “friends,” die herself and get her family killed, or try the inevitable and make an escape? All of these things factor into dealing with great character development and it does get there; slowly but surely, it does get there. We even question ourselves: what would we do in this situation? That is what I loved about Raze. I thought I was just getting a fighting flick with the ladies and it did feel real at times.

However, my suspension of disbelief can only be stretched so far with characters and situations as seemingly real as these. We are supposed to believe that 50 women go missing and no one does anything about it? This isn’t just one incident; this has apparently been going on for a long time. I know disappearances happen every single day but if a woman disappears and then her family is killed? I’m pretty sure the whole fucking government would be on this shit in no time. Now if these disappearances and killings happened every century or so and the families of the deceased fighters were not killed I could buy that, however, that is not the case.

Raze is fun but the story is irritating. They also decided to have a mini-Death Proof reunion, which was a little silly as well. I guess it gives something to the fans but when you see all these people together it reminds you that this is a movie and it isn’t really happening. I’m a person that likes to get lost in a movie and I do not like to realize that I’m watching a movie. I know; I’m weird.

For the most part I think people will dig Raze and I do recommend it. I wouldn’t consider myself a fan but I’m sure this film will have quite the following.

Raze was released on DVD on May 20 through IFC Midnight.