BTC - Saw Review

Burning Through Celluloid

"Most people are so ungrateful to be alive, but not you, not anymore..."
-Tobin Bell "Saw" 2004

(Alec is sitting on a chair in a dark room with a single light and several televisions in front of him. He is asleep until he finally stirs and he starts to open his eyes) "yawn*" (he tries to cover his mouth but he finds he is unable to, his eyes manage to readjust to the lack of light as he looks at his left arm which has been strapped down to the arm of the chair. Confused, he tries to move his feet but he finds they have been trapped to the legs of the chair. He is starting to grow concerned until he turns and is shocked to find a gun on a pedestal aimed at his head with his hand sewn to the gun, unable to remove his hand from the gun. He panics and tries to move away but cannot) "WHAT THE F*CK IS GOING ON?!?! SOMEBODY ANSWER ME!?!?!?!?!?!?!" (just as he starts to struggle, one of the televisions turn on and show static before the image of a puppet with black hair, red spirals and chalky white skin appears, he is Billy the Puppet.)

Alec: "no…f*cking…way…"

Billy the Puppet: "Hello Alec, you find joy in criticizing everything in your life; not just entertainment, but your family and friends as well. The people who gave you a stool to stand on and a megaphone to let your voice be heard, you tear them down like the movies you criticize."

Alec: (struggling in his chair) "this is not happening! This is NOT HAPPENING!"

Billy the Puppet: "Friends and family are the most important things in your life Alec, they listened to you but you closed your ears, rolled your eyes and refused to hear them; you defined your arrogance as being "passion" but no matter what smart words you use; film affectionado, ciniphile, all just masks to disguise your arrogance. Now, we'll see if you can actually use your power of observation to analyze a series of films you have criticized over and over without even seeing them in their entirety. The rules are simple…"

(the other television screens activate showing the titles of the "Saw" Franchise with Billy on the last television monitor)

Billy the Puppet: "You will prove your 'iron nerve' is as impervious as you claim it to be; but you are not watching Holocaust movies or War movies. This is torture porn; a genre that can make anyone uncomfortable but audiences still see these films regardless of what you or the critics have to say. You will watch all of them and critically analyze how your arrogance sees fit; by plot, by character and by production."

Alec: "GOD DAMN YOU!"

Billy the Puppet: "and don't think you can stop the movie to take a break either, I control the remote this time. The only power that you have in your hand is the power to shut yourself off with just the pull of the trigger."

Alec: (looks to the gun barrel near his head and tries again to pull it away but it only causes pain to his hand) AGGGHHHH!!!! F*CK!!!!!!

Billy the Puppet: "live or die, your choice. Let the reviews commence." (the image of the puppet disappears and the television screen all project the opening title "Saw")

Alec: (staring at the screens he leans his head down for a bit and takes a few deep breaths) "come on Alec…pull it together…you sat through "Human Centipede 1 and 2", you can tolerate these movies…all 6 of them…" (with strengthen resolve, Alec sits up properly and watches as Adam gets out of the bathtub…)

- - - - - - - -

Released in 2004 under the direction of James Wan and distributed by Lionsgate Entertainment on an estimated budget of $1,200,000, "Saw" was a horror film made with the idea of doing a low budget thriller involving two men locked in a room together while being told they have to kill one another. What Wan did not intend Saw to be was a franchise as he was trying to make it a mystery thriller that had horrible things happen to people to make a metaphorical point on the victims of the movie. What surprises me the most is how a complete unknown director.writer managed to acquire the acting talents of Cary Elwes, Danny Glover and Tobin Bell for a low budget horror film like this. The film I've bashed on so much without really seeing it in it's entirety, I'm finally gonna give it justice….to save my head….let's get started…

Plot: Waking up in an decrepit old bathroom, Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) and Adam (Leigh Whannell) discover that not only have they been chained to the pipes and there is a dead man in the middle of the room but they are informed via audio tapes that by 6 o'clock, Dr. Gordon must kill Adam or else, not only will Gordon's family die, he will be locked inside the room forever. Trying to keep a steady mind and understand what's going on, Dr. Gordon theorizes this is the work of the Jigsaw Killer (Tobin Bell) a serial killer who forces his victims to do horrible things to themselves to survive, like going through a maze of barbed wire or putting their head in a metallic mask called a "Reverse Bear Trap". Detective David Tapp (Danny Glover) is obsessed with catching this killer that it has cost him his job and his partner, is under the assumption that the killer is Dr. Gordon. But who is the killer what does he want? Let the game begin.
I admit, for a film that is credited with kickstarting a popular franchise, this one seems rather tame, but wickedly brilliant. Oh yeah, you heard, don't think that was a typo, this film is surprisingly brilliant. It reminds me of something like "Se7en" but here, the focus is on the victims rather than the police detectives. The whole film is told mostly from the perspective of these two guys who barely know each other and their attempts to work together to figure a way out while trying to escape without going too radical. It's played out effectively, even down to the torture scenes which are rather tame. They seem to employ the "Tell than Show" rule here for some of the traps when it is revealed via flashback the other traps in the film. Two examples include two victims found dead and only brief hints show what occurred in their tests but everything is shown via snapshots and police reports with the sounds of Jigsaw's voice exhaling the test to them. The one example where they do show what happened involves Amanda, a former drug addict, telling police detectives how she survived her trap, not only do the filmmakers show what happened, they jump back and forth to see Amanda telling the story to the police detectives. It's not terribly gory except for when she pulls out the organs of her drug dealer to get the key but the film doesn't show her cutting him.
This sense of tame violence ensures that the focus is not on the violence itself, but on the mystery element of who is the killer. Because of this, it works well as a mystery thriller. We care about the characters we are given and we are invested in what's going on and trying to understand the role they play in this mystery. The traps themselves are symbolic of the people they are inflicted upon. Take for instance, Paul, a perfectly normal man who decided to slit his wrists, presumably for attention; Jigsaw puts him in a maze of barbed wire, telling him that if he wants to survive, he'll have to cut himself again. It's almost a form of dark humor that reflect on the unappreciative people. It's clever really, very much so.

Characters:
Cary Elwes: British actors continue to astound me how they well they can drop their British accents and give full American accents. Such is the case of Cary Elwes, okay, so his English accent slips in a few times but he manages to keep a level head for most for the film before he finally breaks down and saw his own foot off (which you never see him actually doing, they only show blood splattering in between cuts back to a panicking Adam). He was the guy you root for the most, he has a family so his reasons for wanting to survive make the most sense to us. He also is the only one with the sense to not panic but as the film progresses, we all are given just as much reason that he could be the killer as it could be Zepp the creepy orderly from the hospital. Regardless, whatever theories he comes up, we take said theories to try to complete the mystery as it progresses on screen.

Leigh Whannel: I know this guy wrote the screenplay but this guy is annoying as hell. He's so whiny and neurotic that I really wanted Dr. Gordon to just kill him when he had the chance. Sure, he is somewhat vital to the story's narrative but I just wanted to slap him for being annoying. I assume he represents the average man and how panic can set in so fast. Yet, I found him so annoying that he didn't want to work together with Dr. Gordon, the most easy-minded guy IN this movie for most of it. He has a few twists and turns as the story progresses but my rule of thumb is that if you are given a character that annoys the hell out of you and you want to see him/her die, then you're not going to care all that much whatever happens to him/her.

Danny Glover: Sorry to say but I think this was wasted potential on Glover's part. He's not bad, to say, it's just the character he plays. We've seen this character before, an obsessed cop hell bent on turning in the serial killer (Detective David Miles or Agent Ethan Thomas anyone?) to the point of stalking Dr. Gordon. Danny makes the most out of the role but I find him, for lack of a better word, to be a token black guy. But looking beyond tokenism, what he actually serves is being the perspective of the murders from an authoritarian stand-point and how the Police are looking into the murders, this gives information to the audience. So, it is fair to say he does the job and he doesn't half-ass it; but because I've seen this character a lot that it doesn't seem new to me.

Tobin Bell: I'm not gonna comment on the role he plays physically since we barely see him through most of the film but instead how he performs vocally. Anyone who's even heard of the "Saw" franchise probably knows of it for the traps, it's "Hello Zepp" theme and voice that can be heard on the tapes. He has such a gravely yet eerie voice that really sends a chill up your spine. It's cold yet also helpful if you can hear the double meaning to what his traps. His voice sound very rather electronic, almost mechanical sound, giving the impression that it could be anyone.
The rest of the casting are not worth mention since they fail to leave an impact other than just being the roles the script calls for. Zepp is all right, but very little is seen of him, the same with Detective Sing, nothing memorable about him other than his rather clever way of saving a Jigsaw victim from getting drilled in the head by shooting the drills. Dr. Gordon's wife and daughter are all right, they play the roles they're given and they do it well. The acting is not Oscar-worthy but it works considering it's genre and budgeting.

Production: For a film that is infamous for starting the torture porn craze from the last decade, the film is surprisingly tame. True, there is gore, but what surprises me is how limited it is. This can be attributed to the low budget the filmmakers had to work with, but what shots they do show, it's rather effective in just giving the idea of gruesome violence than just showing it. These include the dreaded foot removal scene, we only briefly see Dr. Gordon starting to cut into his foot until it cuts away to show his face being squirted with blood. Afterwards, we never see his foot and his pants cover his leg to hide away the fact that Mr. Elwes clearly did not cut off his own foot. It's shocking but very effective in generating the idea that our minds form. Considering the very tight schedule director James Wan had to endure as he could not film everything he wanted so he had to use photographs and voiceover with sped-up surveillance camera-like footage to tell the story. The soundtrack is a mixture of industrial rock that sounds like rejected Nine Inch Nails demo tapes, it works for the scenes to instill the mood but the music composition everyone remembers is the track called "Hello Zepp" and, honestly, since it plays at the end, it's so effective in bringing the concept of revelation as all the pieces fall together. It's timed dramatically and effectively gives this feeling of desperation and importance, hence why it's been used in certain trailers such as the Tom Cruise film "Valkyrie." Any more I would have to say is, with the budget James Wan was given, I'm impressed with what he did manage to film.

Bottom Line: For someone who has always ranted on the Saw films as being "garbage," I'm glad at least gave this film a try. However, because I already knew about the sequels and their premises, some elements felt spoiled to me, but if I was an audience member back in 2004, I would have been really shocked and possibly thrilled without feeling spoiled. Still, the way the film paces itself is clever until it comes to it's last surprise to show a character you never really suspected. However, even if "Saw" is clever enough, it's not "The Usual Suspects" clever, which can boast great acting performances with a slick story. "Saw" isn't perfect but I was really engaged and I found the idea of a serial killer that does kill you directly but puts you in horrible situations where you inflict harm upon yourself to be interesting and terrifying in concept. Sure, it's pacing could be better and the acting could be a bit stronger. Still, for what it's worth, this is a movie I would like to see again with some friends who are up for it or if they have a strong stomach.

Final Rating: 3.75 out of 5

- - - - - -

Alec: "You know Jigsaw. Maybe you're right…I can be really arrogant at times…I spent a tough 10 months at a film college that was the best money could afford for me and I constantly flaunt my film knowledge because…well…" (looks down to the ground) "because I wanted to show that I'm different from all the other critics out there…I wanted to show that I wasn't just another run-of-the-mill guy who went online just to rant like a schmuck…all I wanted was to be recognized by lots of people…"

Billy the Puppet: (one of the television screens show his face) "yet your arrogance turned to pride and your pride made you a snob, the type of critic nobody likes."

Alec: (closes eyes looking defeated) "You were right…I had to right to bash upon a film franchise I didn't even see…I'm gonna use this experience and change myself to-"

Billy The Puppet: "oh don't think yourself out of the ballpark yet Alec. Your test has only begun."

Alec: (opens eyes and looks up) "A-Another one? But Jigsaw, I need time to recuperate! I can't just jump right into the next one after this first one!"

Billy the Puppet: "You always bragged to strangers in theaters that you could stay all day inside watching movies, now you'll get to eat your own words…" (his image disappear as all the television screen show the title card "Saw II" and play the music)

Alec: "….can I at least go to the bathroom?"

Billy the Puppet: "no."

Alec: "well f*ck."