SAW is (S)AWFUL

Rating: 4/10 (6 November 2004)

SAW is a mess of a movie - and I'm not talking about the bloody, filthy conditions the two lead actors find themselves in when the movie starts. Now, don't get me wrong, there are a lot of clever things in this movie. It really TRIES to pull it all together but overall, the movie is just full of plot-holes and some real laughable moments of pure stupidity. Poor Cary Elwes has had a real strange career - he is absolutely charming and funny in Princess Bride and since then he really seems to have lost his way - showing up in second and third leads - playing the stiff boyfriend or the shifty cop. Here is a hardworking doctor who finds himself chained to a pipe in a killer's lair. (Again, this whole notion of someone being able to just turn an old factory into a torture chamber with millions of dollars of equipment and accessories is just ridiculous). Elwes really tries to make the moments work but I swear to you, near the end, his work goes so over-the-top, so hammy and corny - you want to call the Screen Actors Guild and have them stage an intervention. Also, the so-called police work that is done in this movie is so unintentionally moronic that the audience I saw this with was howling at some of the dumb mistakes Danny Glover makes in this movie. This is one of those serial killer movies where at various times either a cop or a tortured wife or victim get a chance to have an actual gun pointed at the killer and instead of shooting him many times or wounding him or disabling him or shooting him in both ankles, etc. they just point the gun at him and scream obscenties until they can be overpowered. The film really isn't scary or gory - just rather unpleasant in a Seven kind of way. Horrible things happening to humans and even children. I like this genre and there are some powerful moments in Saw, but overall, this movie should be chained to a pipe and left for dead.