See "Saw"

Rating: 10/10 (12 October 2004)

Mild Spoilers
Two men wake up in a filthy bathroom. They don't know how they got there. They don't know why they're there. They can't remember much of anything. They try to move, but realize that their ankles are chained to metal pipes. Someone else lies dead in the middle of the room, a handgun still clenched in his pale left hand. In his right hand is a tape recorder.
The two men check their pockets. They each have a tape, their names  Adam and Dr. Gordon  scribbled on the outside. They grab the tape recorder and play their messages. A muffled voice tells them the rules of the game: They have mere hours to find a way out of the room by unscrambling a sequence of clues. If they run out of time, they'll look like the third man lying near them. If they win, they go free.
This is the setup for James Wan's disturbing killer-thriller 'Saw'  a movie that will frighten, shock, and disturb you all at once.
I liked the plot  I liked how deliberate the movie was, how forced its opening was, drawing us into its world immediately. There is no build-up. There is no character development prior to the credits. It starts, and it never stops. There is not a single boring scene in this movie, and not a single moment where I felt as if they had run out of ideas and resorted to flashbacks as a convenience. The movie does have a large number of flashbacks -- however, they are used as a narrative tool and not a cheap way of re-capping events  some movies use flashbacks because there isn't enough plot to spread across for an entire runtime, but 'Saw' never gave me that same cheated feeling. I always felt the flashbacks were a way of making the story even better, and more compelling.
The movie is a mix of many genres  it has the appearance of a serial killer film but its plot unravels in a fashion similar to that of a constrained buddy movie, its flashbacks are disturbingly simple (like that of a normal drama with a dark edge) and the twists remind one of something complex such as 'Memento,' 'The Usual Suspects' or 'The Sixth Sense.' Then there's also the cop genre thrown into the mix, as we see scenes in which a frustrated police force tries to solve the numerous murders.
The two lead actors are Cary Elwes and Leigh Whannell (who also wrote the screenplay). They spend a vast amount of time sitting inside a dirty bathroom talking about how they're going to get out of the nasty situation. Elwes is the doctor Gordon, a surgeon who suspects that 'Jigsaw'  an infamous unnamed sadistic serial killer  is responsible for the events. Jigsaw has left a flood of bodies in his wake  all of who technically killed themselves by trying to escape their surroundings (in one of the more technically-fascinating scenes a man wakes up enclosed by barbed wire, and must claw his way through it in order to escape).
Five months prior, the police held Gordon under suspicion after one of his tools was left at the scene of a crime. Even though Gordon had a solid alibi, one of the officers (played by Danny Glover) always suspected that the doctor was responsible and never gave up the pursuit.
The movie's only flaws are probably the dialogue and hammy performances  Cary Elwes has always been good at what he does, but here he seems to be trying to channel the talents of a greater actor  and totally fails. His American accent is laughably bad and uneven  his performance towards the end of the movie is similarly disappointing. Audience members began to laugh at one point, which is never a good sign. I can't help but think his performance actually softens the impact of what should be the most vital scene of the movie  its finale.
That's not to say the movie is bad by any means. The way 'Saw' manages to disturb is in a very simple way. What's ironic is that unlike many other psychological thrillers, it is quite exploitative  it does show us quite a bit of gore. But it's not a boogeyman movie -- it relies on psychological shock tactics rather than the now-common cheap shock tactics, where someone jumps out of the shadows and kills the victim and we're supposed to be scared.
Like other low-budget shockers, I'm almost positive that 'Saw' will travel by word-of-mouth  it has already gained a slow but steady audience in the United Kingdom and its intake will surely increase in the States. It premiered at Sundance and garnered some great reviews and critical accolade -- inevitably the resulting hype is a bit strong for such a modest movie (every commercial ad features at least one reference to 'Se7en') but I purposely avoided reading anything about the movie, and now  in retrospect  I'm very glad I did. If my assumptions are correct 'Saw' will become another cult classic thriller and its popularity will gradually increase.
Suffice it to say without giving away too much: if you are tired of all the clichéd teen-slasher-flicks being released through Hollywood on a regular basis, 'Saw' is a great delight  it may not be a masterpiece, and it may not always be as solid as it seems to think it is, but it shocked, disturbed and entertained me. If you're looking for a likable Saturday night matinée and/or you're a queasy viewer, forget it. But if you're a daring viewer with an empty stomach then 'Saw' is a guaranteed delight. Highly recommended, and worth seeing more than once, especially if you're a fan of the genre.
4.5/5