If you ever watched Fight Club and thought to yourself the scene of Ed Norton pummeling Jared Leto’s character Angel Face repeatedly could have been improved by being a bit longer and replace Norton and Leto with Women, then you have the visceral level that Raze delivers. Former Stunt woman turned full time actress Zoe Bell (Death Proof, Kill Bill) steps into a role she was born to play Sabrina a mother who will do anything to make sure her daughter isn’t harmed. Raze, takes 50 captured women and puts them into a bunker, then forces them to fight to the death in hand to hand combat with the losers loved ones being killed as well, just a little extra incentive so these woman know they are not just fighting for themselves. All part of a long standing tradition by a secret organization.
Raze is B movie bliss, not only is it action packed but these woman know how to throw a punch. This isn’t hair pulling and scratching this is women doing everything we are conditioned to think men can only do. When one woman gets her face cheese grated against a brick wall you reach a point where you are all in on these bad asses. The acting is above average for the subject material with the exception of Rebecca Marshall going over the top as bad girl Phoebe. This is really a perfect showcase for Zoe Bell she is able to show her much improved acting chops that compliment her physical style.
Grade -80
CH: Chris Hill
ZB: Zoe Bell
CH : I quite enjoyed Raze but wanted to first find out how you even got into acting. you started out as a stunt woman for Zena how did that come about?
ZB: I got into Gymnastics at a young age but when I got to old and too tall which ironically for gymnastics is only about 15. I switched over to martial arts, I didn’t know anything about martial arts I just knew the concept was cool. The idea of throwing my legs around, so I looked up in the yellow pages and saw this thing called Tae Kwon Do. Through gymnastics and martial arts I met stunt men. Outside of Evil Knievel I didn’t know what a stuntman was. I didn’t know how people made movies, they just appeared in my video store. They were just there for watching. When I found out what these guys did which was get paid to fight and flip which is what I spent most of my life doing. I don’t know how to explain the feeling of knowing what I wanted to do with my life for the first time in my life I was just like I was made to do this.
The real short bullet point is, my dad was a Doctor, he was working in the emergency room, a guy came in with a bump on his head who turned out to be a stuntman, dad took his number and that was the beginning of it.
CH: That is crazy Some form of divine intervention to get you in the industry
ZB: Don’t get it twisted the journey has been hard with many years in between but the beginning, if I was a fate believer that would have sealed the deal.
CH: You have done stunts in 23 movies and acted in about the same. At what point did you decide you want to be in front of the camera and not just doing stunts for someone else to get the credit.
ZB: The decision was made for me, It never occurred to me that I wanted to be an actor. Or that stunts was a stepping stone to anything. To me stunts was the perfect job, why would you want to do anything else? And then through my relationship with Quinton, In hindsight there were times where it I thought it would be fun to do what they were doing as well. I never thought they were getting my credit. If you think Uma’s doing it all then I am doing my job well, if you think Lucy is doing it all,then I am doing my job well. If you think a stunt girl is there, then there is a problem. The magic of people not knowing I existed I kind of got off on. Then Quinton wrote me into a script. I enjoyed the process of playing a complete character. The difference of I created the style of this person how they moved and how they fought I was in charge of the whole bundle. As opposed to mimicking someones else s movements. I liked that I got to take ownership.
CH:What made Quinton want to have you do more in Death Proof than in his earlier films?
ZB: You would have to ask him to know what goes on in that insane mind of his. But what I gather in knowing him as much as I do or don’t. One thing is Quintin loves the stunt community. The people that bring that part to movies he has fundamental respect for and I think he wanted to bring an homage to that. Three of the main characters are stunt people and on top of that there was a documentary called Double Dare that followed me when I was on Xena the other subject was Wonder Womans stunt double, and the third act was when I met Quintin and got the job on Kill Bill. It became a personal film to him. He told me he would show the documentary to people when they would come over to his house, which mortified me. People reacted to me as a character, somewhere in his head he wanted the Zoe character in a movie also There was a relationship in Kill Bill where he came to me like an actor, if your in front of a camera I expect the same things of you as I would an actor. It was the first time I had that experience. I was always the jock, “why are you killing these people?”, “Because you pay me too”,” why are you running up those stairs?”, “because you pay me too”. His whole thing was “your killing these people for revenge”,”No I’m not, Really?” so I had to wrap my head around that. I think maybe it was part of an experiment in his head “I wonder if I can get her to do this”.
CH:In Raze, Did you have any hand in the choreography in the fights? Or were you there for your acting and physical style?
ZB: No I had my hand in it, if it had a bigger budget or I wasn’t a producer . The reason I was involved was my background. The truth be told if you put me as a producer and get me involved I have opinions and I love sharing them and I love collaborating. I love the teamwork with other people. Thankfully we also had James Young who would lay the foundation of the fights. The Sabrina fight I had more to say, on set my experience came when an actress was tired, they didn’t have a massive fight background. What angles we needed.
CH:Whats been the reaction you have seen? This is the first film I have seen with this many women beating the shit out of each other.
ZB:Is it bad that, that makes me laugh, does that make me sick?
CH:That’s what got me into it, Its not the same thing I see everyday. These are legit fights.
ZB:Yeah, that was important to me and Kenny one of the other producers, he was a boxer and he was always frustrated by female fight films, he was always insulted by them and I knew what he meant. If everything else fails let these fights feel like real fights.
We wanted to treat the film like a male driven film and why have they done it different if these are women.
I wanted to do a fight style like I haven’t done. There hasn’t been To my knowledge a movie where you get women fighters that fight for real. We are fighting for people we love if not a lot of these women wouldn’t have fought, they probably would have just given up and not fought. If you lose and your daughter dies for a woman it brings a whole other level. The first fight sets the scene and that was the first fight we shot.
CH:Doing stunts is there a shelf life? Are you transitioning full time to strictly acting?
ZB:Yeah, I have pretty much transitioned over. There is a hierarchy on set. When people see you as a stunt girl, they don’t feel that a movie can rest on your shoulders and of respect for the art of acting, I am new to it so I need to dedicate my life to that. As far as the shelf life there are women in there 50’s and 60’s still doing it now. For me I was reckless as a kid so my body is thankful that I am transitioning to acting. But I still love riding the wires.
CH:I thought Raze was a really fun film.
ZB:Thanks I am so glad you liked it.
