Saw (2004)

This movie comes complete with gore, scares, suspense and gruesomely great gadgets...and may help you think a bit more fondly of the nuns from your days in private school.

Have you ever had one of those days when nothing seems to go right? You know what I mean. Traffic is a mess, school has got you down, you have an argument with your friend, you wake up in a strange dark place with you leg shackled to a pipe. Needless to say, things have been better.

That is how Saw begins. Adam (Leigh Whannell) and Dr. Gordon (Cary Elwes) wake up on opposite ends of an old run down crapper. Both are shackled to a pipe imbedded in the wall. Between them, on the floor, is a body lying in a pool of blood with a gun in one hand and a mini tape recorder in the other. Adam finds an envelope in his pocket containing an audio tape. Dr. Gordon, on the other hand, finds an envelope with a tape, a key, and a bullet.

Adam’s tape informs him that he just might be in the room that he is going to die in. Dr. Gordon’s tape informs him that he is to be the one to kill Adam. There is a catch though. He has to do it by 6:00 or his wife and daughter will be killed.

Who has orchestrated this dismal scenario? Through deductive reasoning, they figure out that they are the latest victims of the Jigsaw Killer. Technically though, Jigsaw can’t really be called a “killer” because he never actually kills anyone. He has the victims do it for him.

His victims, you see, are stalked and specially chosen for their inability to see how precious their own life is. Jigsaw, then, kidnaps them and puts them into a situation where they must complete some kind of gruesome task designed to have only one of two possible outcomes: complete the task and affirm that they value their own life, or die.

Is it really Jigsaw’s fault that they need to be put through such drastic measures to learn that all life is precious? Is it his fault that some are just not teachable?

Through well placed flashbacks and strategic twists and turns, Saw takes the audience on a sick, twisted and smart tour through the mind of an ingenious serial killer.

I have to admit that while watching Saw I liked it but I wasn’t seeing anything that made it truly special. That was until the end. I hate that I didn’t see it coming but I didn’t. I won’t say anything else, just in case there is still someone out there who hasn’t seen this flick.

James Wan has created an interesting story that has the self styled ability to be followed by as many sequels as the imagination can invent. The only problem that I see is that it also has the capacity, if done haphazardly, to very easily be screwed up. With 4 sequels already done the series has started to become ridiculous (Saw 1-3 are really good, 4-5...meh)

So, the next time that you think your day isn’t going quite the way you planned it and you start getting that “life sucks” feeling, just remember that it could be worse - you could be forced to hacksaw your foot off to escape from a very smelly predicament. Somehow your own situation starts to seem “not so bad”
7.5/10-----the sequal was better