Really quite average

Rating: 5/10 (9 December 2004)

This one had been hyped to me by just about everyone I know as being quite brilliant. Indeed, the Second Coming got less airtime than this one, so I've finally settled down to watch it. Now, we're talking about a true horror connoisseur here, someone who holds Ring (The Japanese original) in such high regard that it's the benchmark for anything else.
So without further ado, how did this one go down?
Saw is, primarily, set in an archaic dungeon style room, with 2 strangers separately bound by chains and unable to remember how they got there. They begin to realize, through an amount of clues provided, and by recollection, that they're here at the behest of some kind of madman whose game insists the only way out is by one killing the other.
Danny Glover is the cop who's pursuing the 'Jigsaw Killer', a killer notorious for never actually killing anyone directly. It seems to be the same person responsible for the situation the 2 strangers find themselves, but no one knows where they are.
Through anecdotal conversations between each other, and continuing discoveries in their 'dungeon', they try to figure out how to get out of the cell. They're given 2 saws, but are unable to cut through the chains.
To say any more would possibly spoil the plot.
There's really very little more I can add to this synopsis to effectively review the film, other than on a technical level. Essentially, for a potentially scary film, it was decidedly short on fear. Maybe it was just a gore-fest, but even then there wasn't a great deal of visceral stuff. The best way I could describe it would be a slightly psychological thriller mystery with a hint of violence.
The biggest problem I have with it is I got absolutely nothing out of it. It wasn't really all that good at anything. No fear, little tension, ineffectual psychology, etc etc. There was just very little to make me sit up and take real notice here.
By all means it entertained, and the characterisation was decent enough I suppose to warrant the desire to know what happened to everyone, but truthfully there was just a lack of punch here. The direction was decent enough without any frills, and there was also a huge lack of cinematography. Even though the confined space of the dungeon was small, there wasn't much claustrophobia going on. This was probably due to the counter-balance of the flashback scenes of the outside world.
Overall, it was just *there* and isn't anything I haven't seen before. For fear, check Ring. For blood, check any number of gorefests. For thriller go with Memento. There are a lot better films out there than Saw.