"Raze" (2014)

There's a reason action films are typically seen as a supremely masculine genre. Rarely has there been an action film that put its female character front and center, placing them as the kickass fighters that define the genre. Minus Katniss Everdeen and Resident Evil's Alice, it's a testosterone heavy playground out there. So to see women fighting and fighting with skill and ability is something of a pleasure. Raze is far from a perfect film, but it shows strong, resilient women fighting and proving themselves -- and that at least deserves some praise. Not only that but the fight scenes, though not always well shot, at least never objectify or sexualize, instead, emphasizing physicality and brutality -- a rarity amongst female fighters in film (look no further than the many superhero films to see how action filled films do a huge disservice to their females in combat). Much of the fighting is brutal. It's a violence that understands that the body can only take so much damage before it succumbs to stress. If the blood shed here feels excessive or needless, it also feels true to the films unflinching approach to its fight scenes. The plot is barebones to the point where the bones have been whittled down close to fracturing. It's a meager exploitation premise: fifty women were abducted and are now forced to fight, one-on-one, to the death, lest their captors kill their families -- who they see filmed on hidden cameras in their underground prison cells connected to the tight-quartered ring they must fight in. If they refuse to fight, their family members will be killed, and if they lose, they will also be killed. We see this situation through the eyes of six woman, primarily through the hardened but barely contained Sabrina (stunt woman Zoe Bell). The plot is really just an excuse for the action, and while it often becomes bracingly bleak, it's still all so raw that, at times, it transcends its ugliness.

Grade: ★★