A slightly laughable experience that should've been so much more

Rating: 6/10 (1 January 2005)

How long have you complained about your life, taking it, and everything, or everyone you've ever loved for granted? Or better yet, what exactly would you do to protect these things? How far would you go just to stay alive? Would you kill another person; possibly ripping apart their innards in order to find the key to your survival? Would you crawl through a room full of barbed wire, cutting yourself so deep that your stomach acid may pour out? Or, would you just die a terrible death? Well, to keep things short, James Wan's SAW raises, and vaguely answers all of these questions in a very grungy, cloying, and macabre kind of way.
SAW opens as two men, Dr. Laurence Gordon (Cary Elwes), and Adam (Leigh Whannell) awaken, chained to the walls of a pitch black, rundown bathroom with a bloody corpse lying, mutilated, at its center. After they each find small tapes in their back pockets, the only information they, and thus the audience is left with is the simple notation that if Dr. Gordon doesn't kill Adam within several hours, his wife and daughter will be murdered.
At the same time, a parallel story proceeds between the characters of Detective Tapps (Danny Glover), and his young partner Steven Sing (Ken Leung), as they investigate a recent onslaught of gruesome murders; all apparently at the hands of a "serial killer" known only as Jigsaw.
The catch, however, is that Jigsaw isn't actually a killer. He only places his victims in certain horribly sickening situations, where they must either fight for their lives, or end up unwillingly killing themselves.
A perfect example of this would be one popular scene in which a young woman, Amanda (Shawnee Smith), wakes up in the middle of an abandoned building with a rusted bear trap locked into her badly bleeding jaws. As she cries out in pain, a conveniently placed television set turns on, and a sadistic looking on-screen puppet informs her that if she doesn't get the bear trap off of her face within the next sixty seconds, it will forcibly open, ripping off her entire lower jaw. The catch is that the key to the contraption is lying in her drugged up cell-mate's stomach; so she must choose between dying, or killing the man, and ripping apart his insides with a switchblade.
However, even with its many scares, and gross out moments, SAW is far from perfect.
First of all, the acting, mainly between the two main leads, is absolutely terrible. Cary Elwes, and Leigh Whannel overact so much, that by the movie's second act it'll seem like you're watching two William Shatner clones interact, using trademark "overdone" facial expressions, and incontrollable volume. Because of this, many scenes, which should've been completely terrifying, ended up making the entire audience break out in laughter.
Second of all, SAW's screenplay is very slowly paced, and badly put together. Nothing, except maybe the film's expected twist ending, will surprise you, and because of the story's slow nature, many people will lose interest in the plot within the first half hour of the film.
It should also be noted that James Wan, as a first time director, did an exemplary job directing the film, using amazing lighting techniques, atmospheres, and colors to benefit the entire movie. If only he could write as well as he could direct, the film would've been a lot better.
All in all, SAW is a mediocre thriller plagued with bad acting, slow pacing, and too many funny moments that should've been horrific. Because of this, what could've been a wonderful, scary movie suffers in the long run, and becomes less than your average Halloween chiller. See this movie, but wait for the DVD to come out in all of its uncut glory first. The theatrical version just isn't worth the nine bucks.
Rating: 2.5/5