Jigsaw (2017)

Mark Burg

## Overview

Nearly a decade after the death of John Kramer, criminal Edgar Munsen is pursued by the police. After being cornered by Detectives Brad Halloran and Keith Hunt, he claims that he must start another "game" in exchange for his own survival, and activates a remote trigger before it gets shot out of his hand, but a shot hits Edgar in the chest and he collapses.

Five people – Mitch, Anna, Ryan, Carly, and an unconscious man – awaken inside a barn with buckets on their heads and chains around their necks. A tape recording from John Kramer explains that they have all sinned and must sacrifice some blood to survive before the chains begin pulling them towards a wall of buzzsaws. Most of the group survives by cutting themselves, except for the unconscious man, who awakens too late. Their next test reveals that Carly is a purse snatcher, who accidentally caused the death of an asthmatic woman. To save the others from being hanged, she must inject herself with one of three needles – one containing an antidote to a poison in her system, another one saline, and the last one acid. She refuses, so Ryan stabs her with all three, killing her and saving the others.

Halloran and Hunt investigate the discovery of corpses that appear to be the unconscious man and Carly, whose deaths fit John's *modus operandi*. Halloran becomes suspicious of pathologists Logan Nelson and Eleanor Bonneville. Later, Edgar is abducted from the hospital, and his corpse is found inside John's grave when it is exhumed by the police. Meanwhile, Ryan attempts to escape the barn through a door with the words "No Exit" on it, but his leg falls through loose floorboards, and is ensnared by wires. Another tape recorder reveals that he will be punished for breaking the rules and must pull a lever to be "set free." Anna and Mitch enter a silo and are trapped inside, forcing Ryan to pull the lever and sever his leg to rescue them.

Eleanor reveals to Logan that she is a fangirl of Jigsaw and has built replicas of many of his traps in her studio, but now fears that this might incriminate her. Hunt follows them and informs Halloran. In the barn, Mitch is revealed to have sold a motorcycle with a faulty brake to John's nephew, resulting in his death, and is tested by being lowered into a funnel with a spiral-shaped blade powered by a motorcycle engine inside. He attempts to stop the blade by reaching a brake at the bottom of the funnel but is ultimately killed. Halloran finds a corpse appearing to be Mitch in Eleanor's studio and calls for her and Logan's arrest. Logan convinces Hunt to let them go after telling him that the bullet which hit Edgar was fired by Halloran, whom he and Eleanor suspect is the new Jigsaw Killer. Eleanor deduces the game's location and she and Logan depart for the barn, with Halloran in pursuit.

Meanwhile, Hunt finds jigsaw-shaped pieces of flesh in Halloran's freezer, further incriminating Halloran. In the barn, Anna and Ryan are shackled to pipes at opposite ends of a room. John Kramer, apparently still alive, confronts them and reveals that Anna suffocated her baby and framed her husband, who eventually committed suicide, and Ryan caused his friends' death in a car accident. For their final test, he leaves them a shotgun loaded with one shell and departs, saying that it is the key to their survival. Anna tries to shoot Ryan, but the gun backfires and kills her. Ryan finds the keys among the debris, hidden inside the shell and destroyed in the blast; with no way to free himself, he is left to die. Logan and Eleanor are ambushed by Halloran at the barn. Eleanor escapes, while Halloran is drugged by an unseen assailant.

Logan and Halloran awaken in collars rigged with laser cutters, and are told to confess their sins to survive. Halloran forces Logan to go first, and he confesses to mislabeling John's X-rays years prior, causing his cancer to go undiagnosed; despite confessing, Logan is apparently killed. Halloran then admits to allowing criminals to walk free for personal gain and his collar deactivates. Logan is revealed to still be alive, and also the unconscious man who apparently died in the first barn game, which occurred ten years prior. Realizing Logan dying would undermine the point of his traps and deciding that he should not die over an honest mistake, John saved him and recruited him as his first apprentice. Logan then reveals that he framed Halloran as the new Jigsaw Killer as revenge for releasing Edgar, who killed Logan's wife, and that he recreated the barn games using other criminals that Halloran let go as victims.

Claiming that he and Halloran were the final participants and that Halloran broke the rules by forcing him to go first, Logan reactivates the collar and slices Halloran's head open.

## Cast

* Matt Passmore as Logan Nelson
* Tobin Bell as John Kramer / Jigsaw
* Callum Keith Rennie as Detective Brad Halloran
* Hannah Emily Anderson as Eleanor Bonneville
* Clé Bennett as Detective Keith Hunt
* Laura Vandervoort as Anna
* Paul Braunstein as Ryan
* Mandela Van Peebles as Mitch
* Brittany Allen as Carly
* Josiah Black as Edgar Munsen
* Edward Ruttle as Matthew
* Michael Boisvert as Lee James
* Troy Feldman as Officer Palermo
* Shaquan Lewis as Officer Solomon