Raze is, in theory, a movie sounds absolutely badass. Kidnapped women are forced to fight each other to the death in a kind of modern gladiator combat to survive. As if that weren’t enough, it’s not only their own lives at stake but also those of their loved ones. Lose the fight and die, and the lives of their relatives end as well. Calling it macabre would be an understatement.
Again, in theory, Raze is definitely a film that should stir strong emotions in the viewer — even if that viewer happens to be as jaded as myself.
And I must say, the violence is often genuinely brutal in Raze. They don’t shy away from showing some pretty severe injuries. You see eyes being gouged out and hear necks snapping. In other words, they nailed it on that front. If you’re going to make a movie with such a horrific premise, you better go all the way — and they really did.
If that wasn’t enough, they managed to find some truly slimy villains behind the horrors. Individuals who are easy to despise. Real upper-class scumbags, if I may put it that way. However, it does get a bit repetitive over time. One fight after another between two women.
Granted, there’s some drama woven into the fights to give the characters a bit of personality and to create relationships between the women. For better or worse, maybe. It’s easy to hate someone who just killed your friend, but it’s hard to be forced to fight someone you’ve come to like. To the death, no less.
A couple of things actually surprised me. I can’t go into details, unfortunately, but let’s just say not all the fights end how you might initially expect. There’s room for anything to happen. Hopefully, I was vague enough.
Overall, though, I was disappointed. The film didn’t quite live up to my expectations, but it still managed to entertain me moderately for the duration. I’ll probably forget it fairly soon. There was nothing in it — aside from the macabre concept — worth remembering for long.
