Double Act 'Play A Game' With Innocent Heads.

Rating: 10/10 (7 July 2005)

Having read numerous reviews for 'Saw' I've discovered that it's a bit like 'Marmite'; you either love it or you hate it. But c'mon! What's not to love. Aussie double act James Wan (director) and Leigh Whannel (screen-writer/"Adam") present to us something I don't think has been done this successfully in years. 'Saw' won me over the first time I saw it, with its creepy story-line and bizarre camera angles and it's grown in my estimation over the course of the years.
Saw starts when Adam (Leigh Whannell) awakes in a bathtub to find himself chained up in a darkened room and very confused. When the lights go on his cell-mate Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) is revealed to him as well as the dead body of a man, a gun in one hand and a tape recorder in the other. As Lawrence and Adam start talking, clues are revealed to them. They both find tapes in their pockets, each carrying a sinister message and a task they must complete to escape with their lives. Adam's task is to save his own life, and not to sit back and watch himself die. Lawrence's task is to kill Adam; the consequence if he doesn't is that his wife and child will die. Lawrence begins to tell the story of Jigsaw, a serial killer who captures the morally wayward, in life or death situations, intended to make them appreciate their own mundane lives. Adam and Lawrence are not Jigsaw's first victims, he's targeted self-harmers, drug addicts and benefit frauds and now, seemingly innocent Adam and do-gooding Dr. Lawrence are victims in his next game. Clues are revealed to the two characters as they are revealed to the audience, we find out that Lawrence has been cheating on his wife and that Adam has been paid to take pictures of him by obsessed ex-leading detective on the Jigsaw case, David Tapp (Danny Glover). Meanwhile, as Adam and Lawrence are being held captive in a bathroom, Lawrence's wife and daughter are being terrorised by creepy Zep Hindle (Michael Emerson) a quiet janitor in Lawrence's hospital. Eventually, Lawrence's time runs out, Adam is still alive and Zep leaves the Gordon's to carry out his work and go and kill Lawrence, pursued by the ever observant Tapp. As the story unfolds and Lawrence's situation becomes more desperate he takes drastic measures to release himself from his chains. Zep and Tapp, brawl in the tunnels which lead to the room in which Adam and Lawrence are trapped, which results in a fast-paced action and Tapp's murder. As Zep enters the bathroom, the gruesome finale climaxes in a terrifying twist - and trust me, you'll be screaming as loudly as the characters on screen.
Altogether a very well brought together film, which exceeded my expectations and shows Whannell and Wan as the true geniuses they deserve to be credited as.