Nerds That Geek Movie Review: ‘Raze’

Written by Scott Edwards 

How far would you go to protect your loved ones if you had a choice? I would hope that it would take you to the ends of the earth, but everybody finds a different meaning with that saying. Fighting to keep the ones you hold dear to your heart is something that everyone seems to be willing to do and if you are given an option between them or yourself, well, that might be where the reality starts to step in. Defending someone is different than defending yourself and that is where the line starts to be drawn in the sand as you take up arms against the people trying to hurt you or your loved ones.

Waking up in a cell, Jamie is thrown into a hallway with a stranger that she has never met nor seen before. As the woman named Sabrina starts to speak, Jamie does not believe what she is in the middle of.  Sabrina is stronger and faster than her and keeps saying that she needs to fight and by the end of the encounter, Jamie is left dead on the arena floor and Sabrina lives to fight another day. Returning to her cell, all of the victors are given praise by the man upstairs for their efforts on this fine day, but the reality that they are facing is becoming more real.  Watching the loved ones of the fallen women get murdered in cold blood, they understand how high the stakes are if they lose.

As Sabrina and her fellow winners are gathered up and taken to meet their captors, Joseph and Elizabeth, they are let in on a little secret. The grand winner of the blood sport will be released back into the real world and no harm will come to them or their families ever again. The women believe this is a promise that their strange overseers will fulfill, so they continue to fight. Day after day, match after match, two strangers are thrown into a small space and forced to kill each other. But when the women on Sabrina’s corridor find out she is ex-military; they start throwing out ideas of escaping. Sabrina tries everything that she has learned to find a weak spot, but the only way out of this hell hole is to win…or be killed.
​
This movie is filled with fighting, blood and strong women bringing beat downs at every turn. I did not know what to expect when reading the little blurb on Netflix about it, so I just gave it a watch. Not a bad movie overall and I enjoyed how some of the personal lives were brought into the fights.  Not only looking to survive themselves, the women that are being forced to fight are trying to protect their loved ones first, and then themselves.  With too many women to name, since there were fifty fighting for survival, each one had their own little back story and even though you only catch a glimpse of it, you understand who they are fighting for and what is driving them to make it to the final round. Happy Viewing.

---