Good premise, mediocre actualization

Rating: 6/10 (5 July 2006)

This movie starts out very strongly. Two men wake up in an old, isolated bathroom chained to pipes and with a dead body between them. As they slowly start to figure out what's going on, they discover clues to a puzzle that they must get out of; if they don't in time, they'll die (in various ways). It's all an elaborate scheme thought up by a serial killer named Jigsaw who's out to do something about people who don't appreciate their lives in the way he feels they should.
The plot--and general creepiness and scare factor--are weakened once we start playing the "flashback and twist" game. The doctor fellow knows who this killer is, because he used to be a suspect in the case... and thus the story gets told directly to us. And from there the movie loses most of its power. Instead of working out a great mystery over how this all came to be, we're just TOLD it (but with twists, see, because twists a good horror movie make). Instead of being confined, literally, to this room to find all the clues, we're taken on asides to other characters, one of which was completely superfluous (Danny Glover's detective character... seriously, could have not been in the movie at all and probably wouldn't have changed anything). And then we get some weird form of selective memory: "Oh gee, I just now remembered what happened to me yesterday! Now that it's important for the audience to know!" So it's definitely not what I would call the most tightly wound thriller, but the premise is a very good one. Knowing the way sequels work (and the fact that there are two already), I doubt they'll pump much more strength into the loose ends of this first one, so it's a shame that this great idea turned out pretty mediocre.
However, it was fun to watch anyway. It made up for superfluousness by inventing even more crazy traps and characters. One scene was so full of glurge it was ridiculous: "And did you? Did you turn out a better person?" "*Cries* He saved me!" I believe these situations would do a lot more to permanently damage people's lives than make them realize how important life is. I think that's part of the point of having him, is that he has this great idea but is too insane to realize that it would backfire, and just ends up hurting and killing people.
So ultimately, fun to watch, not the greatest slice of horror pie ever.
--PolarisDiB