Se7en without the depth

Rating: Null/10 (28 November 2004)

I'll start right out and say that "Saw" is a fairly decent movie, depending on how high your toleration of utter brutality and viciousness is. If it's high, then it'll be decent until the end when you're kicked in the face with one hell of a plot twist.
"Saw" is one hell of an abrasive movie. It seems as though the creators intended to relentlessly torture the audience along with the characters in the movie by way of some of the most cruel inventions a human mind has ever come up with. This, surprisingly, is the heart and soul of the movie. It's a series of plot devices and twists meant to stun and shock the audience, and it will do that quite well.
The problem is that it is ALL this movie does. It's another in the tradition of Se7en, a gruesome movie with the intention to shock and enlighten you. However, Se7en started with its tone and purpose and THEN went to the polt twists, whereas Saw starts with the plot twists, tries to go to the depth, but fails. The characters are unsympathetic and shallow and, even though the film implies this, they lack any real sins that deserve the punishment they receive. The killings are random and pointless. Whereas the killing in Se7en had a twisted depth and meaning to them, the ones in Saw are simply twisted. We wind up with a bad guy we're supposed to respect due to his brilliance, but instead we hate him and spend the entire movie either in agony waiting to know what happens or waiting to see if he gets his comeuppance. His reasoning for what he does winds up being ridiculous and fragmented. It's a shock, but that's all.
This, and the movie is tainted by the goth/metal/S&M underground cult fetish. Every scene is given bleary, dead light and they try to make every other shot trendy by saying, "Hey, why don't we speed up the film and give it a metal headbanging soundtrack?" It seriously gets annoying very quickly and makes the rest of the movie seem trivial.
The acting is all right. Nothing special. There are several times when the audience screams out "Just SHOOT the guy!" but they never do, of course. The trail of clues Adam and Lawrence go through from their confined positions is interesting but, stretched over time, makes the audience impatient. Also, the difference between the past and the present is not indicated very well.
But if you can sit through all of this, you'll get one of the greatest shocking movie endings of the year.