Unchained (2021) by Raphaello

Director: Raphaello

Year: 2021

Country: USA

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Action

Plot:

Down on her luck and about to hit rock-bottom, a woman tries to move on with her life but is unable to do so. Receiving word that a new underground fighting movie is being cast and looking for women like her, she tries out and manages to get the part. After leaving the audition, she finds herself abducted and placed in an illegal underground fighting ring with several other women training to participate in fights with other women just like her and beaten for failing to live up to their standards of what they want. The longer she stays there, though, she begins to believe in escape and tries to survive long enough to finally get away from the group with her life and whoever she can take with her.

Review:

This was an underwhelming genre effort. Among the few bright spots featured here is the gloriously cheesy setup that highlights how egregious the group was in getting the girls together for their underground fight club. The initial audition, taking place in a gym basement that comes off incredibly sketchily with the clumsy camera assistant and how flighty he is regarding the audition when her incredibly underwhelming performance is accepted before she even has a chance to warm up to show off her skills. That highlights how dangerous and sketchy the organization is which is carried over into how ruthless they are with their treatment of the other fighters in their compound. Rather than force the group into constant fighting for a barbaric tournament that she has to go through, there’s more of a training process that supposedly breaks them down but looks to hone their lackluster skills to the point of wanting to escape.

However, beyond that, the film is highly disappointing. The main drawback is that the supposed fights here are so incompetent and sloppily constructed that nothing is exciting or thrilling about them. The fighters themselves are the main problem, who barely look to be in the kind of athletic shape to be held captive as long as they claim to be and whose perfunctory martial arts skills are so laughable to be bordering on incompetent. Despite the fact that there are a few fights thrown into the final half in a frantic enough fashion to generate some attempt at interest, the rudimentary punches and what amount to striking choreography only serves to highlight that none of the girls are good enough to be in this kind of film making this aspect an abject embarrassment. Any attempt to make it more exciting with fancy camera-work is only able to instead showcase their lack of skills since the punches look weak and barely make contact, furthering that underwhelming quality.

The other detrimental factor here is the terrible storyline that is simply awful and just completely unbelievable. The flimsiness with which they capture her in this scheme and hold her hostage to train is highly unrealistic that it doesn’t send up any kind of warning signs about the situation, and with the comically inadequate number of performers in this group it seems incompetent that they have these girls under their control. That it becomes really painful in the final half where this painfully inadequate fighting corporation is finally revealed which is so ludicrous and unrealistic that it becomes plain painful to believe this twist was allowed to come through and become part of the finished product. The resolution to this one is just laughable as well, making no sense and coming off with no connection to anything that’s come before which is a rather big drawback, and when combined with the low-budget on display really drags the film down overall.

Overview: 0.5/5

Despite a few minor and barely worthwhile positives here, the fact that the rest of the movie is barely worthwhile and an absolute embarrassment to the genre overall makes this one nearly unwatchable for the most part. There’s no point to this one as other films in the style are much better and more enjoyable at this style or just simply better-made movies and just leave this one alone.