Dumb, but interesting

Rating: 6/10 (23 January 2016)

Well, Robert the Bruce is our hero, Donnie Wahlberg escapes...kind of, Amanda goes even more bug eyes crazy and Jigsaw buys the farm in this third Saw movie, that is vast improvement over the second installment and benefits even more from the viewer not thinking too hard about what's happening.
We begin with Detective Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg), showing considerably more intelligence than Doctor "I'm-going-to-saw-my-foot-off-with-a-hacksaw" Gordon from the original, breaking his foot in order to get it out of the chain that's holding him. He limps down the hallway and... into oblivion apparently because the film fast forwards six months and not a soul has seen him in that time (this is explained in the next film).
Jigsaw has returned and he would appear to have changed his method and is now setting unwinnable traps to torture people to their inevitable demise. For instance, some poor unfortunate has to pull out chains that are attached to his body in order to escape a bomb, but even if he had got the chains loose, the door was welded shut. At the crime scene we get reacquainted with Matthews' former partner Detective Allison Kerry who is inspecting the crime scene with her new partner Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor of Picket Fences "fame"). We feel kind of sorry for Kerry as mopes around all depressed about Matthews' disappearance. I wonder if the story will give us more insight into this interesting character who's been around since the first film of the series? Of course not! She gets abducted from her house and gets killed by another unwinnable trap, having her rib cage torn off after burning her hand in acid. We find out it's Amanda (Shawnee Smith) who's setting these unwinnable traps and...Good Lord. I'm already three paragraphs in. Better wind this up.
OK, a doctor, Lynn Denlon, who has marriage issues revealed in a conversation with a man who "wants a divorce," is abducted from the hospital and wakes up with a bomb strapped to a collar on her neck that's going to blow up if Jigsaw dies before another victim finishes their test. The other victim is Jeff, a man who lost his son in a drink driving accident 3 years ago and became bitter and damaged, leading to him neglecting his daughter and all but leaving his wife. Jeff is going to have to learn to forgive as part of his test and at the end he will meet "the man responsible for the death of his child." So Jeff has to forgive a silent witness who never came forward at the trial of the drunk driver (try not to think about how stupid that is, unless Jigsaw is either telepathic or God), the judge who let the driver off lightly, and of course the driver himself. His results are mixed to say the least, but he does take the opportunity to forgive the driver. Mission accomplished I guess.
In the meantime Amanda is acting more and more crazy as Lynn struggles to keep Jigsaw alive. Then we get two twists. Firstly Lynn is Jeff's wife, the man at the start who "wanted a divorce" was her lover. Secondly, this is also Amanda's test. He wanted to see if she was willing to let people live, which she isn't as she first refuses to take the collar off Lynn and then shoots her, just as Jeff comes in, who takes out Amanda with one bullet. Then we get another twist as Jeff, remembering that this movie is called saw, slices Jigsaw's throat with a power saw, killing him, but not before he plays one last game from his little tape recorder. Remember how Jigsaw told Jeff he would "meet the man responsible for the death of his child?" Well he wasn't talking about the drunk driver who ran over his son, he was talking about himself and the fact he had kidnapped Jeff's daughter and was the only person who knew where she was. Good one Jeff. You can forgive the man who killed your son, but you can't stop yourself from slicing the throat of a dying man and now your daughter's going to die. As Jigsaw dies, the collar on Lynn's neck detonates, and Jeff's left to freak out just like Adam and Matthews in the first two films as credits role.
Of all the Saw movies, this probably has the victim I sympathize with the most in Jeff (Braveheart's Angus McFayden). Jeff is probably the best realized character in the whole Saw series apart from Jigsaw himself. I also for the first time was able to somewhat buy into Jigsaw's method. Jeff is being taught a positive lesson. For the first time I wonder of maybe Jigsaw is more than a crazy wannabe zen master who gets kicks out of torturing people to death and uses the delusion he's teaching people life lessons to justify it. However, that good will is lost at film's end. The last 5 minutes seriously just kills it. The guy learns nothing. Jigsaw is a very bad teacher with a very ineffective method.
Saw 3 is a relatively satisfying film, and, in spite of all the threads left hanging, comes the closest of the sequels to standing up as a film in its own right. This was the last installment still involving the original creative team of Wan and Whannell, and I think they were probably expecting the people they handed the ball off to, to run a lot more creatively with it than they do.