Game Over!

Rating: 9/10 (26 July 2014)

The year 2004 was a great year for Hollywood. As this year brought many brilliant, memorable and big budget movies to Hollywood which were both critically and commercially successful. Saw was one of those films which was actually the wild card. It was an independent film with a low budget and a new entry into the survival horror and suspense/thriller genre of movies, with so many movies of the genre already out during that during time period, Saw was the dark house and it was not known whether it would be successful or not.
Saw turned out to be a such a big success that it spawned 6 sequels. I always wanted to watch this movie as I am a fan of genre, but what put me off was that there was a lot of gore in this movie. I can handle violence but after watching many films with so much pointless gore and bloodshed just for the sake of it, I did not get around to watching this movie until recently.
The film puts you right into the action two men who don't know each other are trapped in a room together with a corpse, with no idea how they got there, they find out that some serial killer coin named the Jigsaw has trapped them there and wants them to play his Game to survive, than several events unfold with the two guys attempting to find out a way out, and also trying to get to know each other knowing that these maybe their final hours. The film also switches back and forth with flashback sequences of both guys that led them to that place which adds to the suspense of the film, we also get a flashback on some of the earlier Games played by the Jigsaw. There is also an interesting side story about a cop named Dupp who is obsessed with Jigsaw.
The films starts out great and will have you hooked to your seats and it adds to the mystery that the film was not told in a chronological order but kept on switching back and forth between the present and past sequences this leaves rooms for more shocking twists and more mysteries to be revealed.
Of course there was a twist at the end and I was not able to figure it out, I was actually shocked and the idea about it did not even cross my mind. But this twist leaves some ambiguity, interpretation and some suspension of disbelief. But the twist delivered in terms of shock value and many did not see it coming as I can tell from forums online.
The film is well shot and well directed, and the violence and gore is there but not to the extreme levels I expected so I did not find it that bad. Acting is fine, Adam and Lawrance do act somewhat naturally for the situation they were put in, Lawrence's character development by the end was also handled well. The Jigsaw did not get screen time a whole a lot but his voice was just menacing and villainous, and the mystery about him just adds to his character makes the character more thrilling and scary. The actor who plays the former detective Tapp also did a fine job. Shawnee Smith as Amanda was great in her cameo she played her traumatized character very well. The acting is not Oscar worthy or anything like that but I thought it was fine and done well.
Saw is an enjoyable horror/thriller film, It had me hooked from my seat from the beginning to the end and was extremely fun to watch. Although I am a fan of the genre there are films of this genre which I find tiresome and hard to sit through and mostly find myself skipping through the scenes , Saw was the complete opposite of such films it had me glued to my seat and I was anticipated to see what happens next. The end left me in shock and after the ending I am still thinking about this movie and it's story and trying to interpret it's events. This is a great survival horror, suspense, mystery which is recommended to any fan of the genre.
Overall 9/10.