**SPOILERS** Saw will kill your appetite, but not your interest. And be sure to keep those lights on, cause you won't be sleeping anytime soon.

Rating: 7/10 (14 November 2004)

****MAJOR SPOILERS WARNING****
A young man named Adam wakes to find himself chained to a rusty pipe inside a decrepit subterranean chamber. Chained to the opposite side of the room is another bewildered captive, Dr. Lawrence Gordon Between them is a dead man lying in a pool of blood, holding a .38 in his hand. Neither man knows why he has been abducted; but instructions left on a micro cassette order Dr. Gordon to kill Adam within eight hours. If he fails to do so, then both men will die, and Dr. Gordon's wife, Alison, and his daughter will be killed.
Recalling a recent murder investigation by a police detective named Tapp, Dr. Gordon realizes he and Adam are the next victims of a psychopathic genius known only as "Jigsaw." With only a few hours left to spare, they must unravel the elaborate puzzle of their fate in the midst of mounting terror. The killer has provided them with only a few clues and two handsaws - too weak to break their steel shackles, but strong enough to cut through flesh and bone.
Lawrence realizes that the person responsible for putting himself and Adam in this room is an all too familiar person. He was a suspect in a series of murders that were committed by a killer known only as, the jigsaw killer. A police detective named Detective David Tapp and his partner Detective Steven Sing are committed to bring Lawrence Gordon, whom they believe to be the killer. Now Lawrence is a victim in a crime that he himself was accused of. He was not found guilty, that's not to say he is innocent.
The two police detectives peruse the killer to where they believe to be his place of business. They find one of his victims who are tied to a chair with a drill bit on both sides of his head slowly moving towards his head. The victim's name is Jeff. Soon, he will be dead if the two detectives do not act soon enough. Sing shoots off the two drills and the killer arrives, and they think they have him. But the killer brings out a knife and slashes Tapp's throat and Sing chases the killer.
Sing corners the killer and fires at him. He thinks the killer is dead. But Sing triggers a trip wire, which is tied to several shotguns, which fire at Sing killing him. Tapp is not dead, and finds Sing dead, and the killer is nowhere to be found. Tapp survives the attack only to be fired from the police force, becomes insane on his quest to bring the man responsible for his partner's death. His aim towards the killer has become much more personal.
The killer makes his way into Lawrence's house and keeps his family hostage. The supposed "killer" is one of Lawrence co worker's named Zep Hindle. Hindle threatens to kill his family. Lawrence knows who he is because of a photograph taken from a window onto his apartment. Here is where the film really takes off. Lawrence gives Adam his wallet to look at a picture of his family. Adam see's a picture of Lawrence's daughter. "She's beautiful" he states. Lawrence tells him to look at the picture behind, the one with all of them on it. But there's nothing but a picture with his wife and child tied together gagged.
The film's finally scene begins with Cary Elwes completely losing it. After a while Adam finally shows Lawrence he picture of his family tied to a bed. Thinking his family is in danger, then he takes one of the saws that were in the package Adam found, and saws his right foot off. This scene is very brutal, graphic and disturbing. He then grabs the gun that the supposed "dead guy" has near his hand, and shoots Adam. But only in the shoulder, wounding, but not killing Adam. Lawrence does this because he wants to be sure his family is indeed alive.
Zep Hindle, one of the nurses for Dr. Lawrence Gordon is the supposed "killer" and enters the bathroom where Adam and Lawrence are chained and Lawrence demands to see his family because he believes he has completed the killers "game". But he is too late, and Zep Hindle raises his gun, as if to kill Lawrence. Adam grabs Zep Hindle from behind and grabs a piece of the toilet seat and bashes Hindle's head in until he is dead. This is also a very brutal scene.
Lawrence than leaves the room to find help for himself and Adam. Adam then searched the body of Hindle to find the keys for his chains. He doesn't find a key, but rather a tap recording similar to that of the one that he found on the dead body in the room to play his and Lawrence's tape. A tape is in the player and Adam listens to it. Adam now learns that Hindle was also a part of the game. He was set up by the real jigsaw killer to convince Lawrence to kill Adam, saw his foot off, (which was the only way they'd leave) and within a certain amount of time.
The challenge to Hindle was that if he does convince Lawrence to kill Adam, he would have to kill Lawrence's wife and child to keep his own life. He must kill two people to keep his own life. Or he would die himself. Another possible challenge is that if Hindle did not convince Lawrence to kill Adam, he would die. All of the killer's victim's either don't value their life, or have committed a crime, or have cause anger, or just are not a good person. He challenges them to game. He wants to know how much do they value their life. Enough to kill another?
But anyways, after listening to tape, Adam is in shock. Now comes the REAL shocker of the flick, and the single greatest movie ending, or twist rather, ever. The dead body in the middle of the room rises and removes a semi-mask, the gunshot wound. The dead body has been the killer all along. He tells Adam that the key to unlock his chains is in the bathtub. Adam remembers waking up, and something falling in the drain of the bathtub. It was the key. The killer leaves the room, and leaves Adam to die in the room alone. And that is where the greatest movie of all time, SAW, ends.
Prepare yourself for a gut-wrenching trip into the heart of terror with SAW. Gritty, terrifying and gruesome, SAW is a taut, squirm-inducing film packed with moments of indelible horror. Director James Wan expertly spins this intricate tale, creating a chilling landscape of dread where nothing is quite as it seems. An edge-of-your-seat ride bristling with emotional intensity, SAW will keep you guessing until the very end. Keep the lights on, you won't sleep easily tonight.
I'm not going to beat around the bush. Saw is the single greatest thriller I have ever seen. Saw is simply everything a thriller should be. The thrills are not based on relentless blood spurts; these are wink-at-the-audience scares of modern day horror. There's no villain spouting cheesy catch phrases. These are legitimate scares brought on by a story, which cleverly draws you into the twisted world of Jigsaw.
The situations he puts his victims in are scary in themselves with some of the most disturbing scenes in cinema history. Saw throws many many many thrills at you for good measure. As soon as you think you have the figured out, it throws another twist and thrill at you that WILL keep you guessing until the very end, with it's shocking and utterly brilliant conclusion.
Take whatever expectations you had of this film, and throw them out the window. Weather they were good or bad, this film will shock and amaze you. It is not what you will expect. Even if it's good, or if it's bad, you'll be surprised. There is not one single moment in this movie where you will not be saying to your self, "What the hell is going now", "Did that just happen?' "Whoa!". You will loose yourself in the insane amount of twist and scares in this movie.
You just can't help but wonder, who could think of something like this? Saw is best viewed when you know little or nothing about it going into the theater. The less you know, the more shocked you'll be. That's not to say that knowing anything about it will ruin it. Far from it. The film is extremely original and a taut and sense movie. The acting from the three main leads is excellent. Why is it independent low budget films seem to almost always be better than Hollywood pictures?
Saw accomplishes the kind of gritty, edge of the seat thriller that the studios rarely accomplish with budgets 20 times larger and months of shooting. It gives so called "scary" Hollywood horror flicks like "The Ring" and "The Grudge" a total run for their money. It shows you how to make a horror flick. Saw is more than just an impressive accomplishment for two young filmmakers, it's one of 2004's standout films and the scariest film in years.
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