Saw: Review By Lord McLovin of MovieWeb

I know it may look odd for my First Review to be that of a horror movie, let alone, that of a Saw film; but suffice to say, this is actually my first review. Beginning tonight, I will review as many movie franchise films I have seen. From Jurassic Park, Die Hard, Transformers, to Harry Potter; I will try my best to review these films. Let me break it down how I will review: First paragraph will be the intro/story of the movie. Second paragraph will be the pros of the film, third will be the cons, the fourth paragraph will focus on the actors and directing, cinematography and editing of the movie etc etc; The final paragraph will be a conclusion from all of the above. So, let's begin, shall we?

If you were to suddenly wake up in a dark and grimy bathroom, what would you initially think to yourself? How did I get here? Is my family okay? Why am I chained to a pipe? What's with the dead body in the middle of the bathroom? and Why is their another person with me? Not to mention, two rusty saws. That is the predicament that Dr. Lawrence Gordon is going through right now. You see, apparently a serial killer that goes by the name of "Jigsaw" captured two men, the other being photographer Adam Stonehieght and chained the two inside a dirty bathroom together. After introducing the two to each other, they try and find a way out of this trap. Once they check their pockets, they both find an envelope that contains a cassette tape labeled as "Play Me". Creepy huh? Thought so. They put the tapes inside a tape recorder that was in the hands of the body in the middle of the floor. When the tapes were played, Jigsaw's voice was heard. Basically, Dr. Gordon has to kill Adam before the time runs out or else he won't see his wife and kid again (which he has relationship problems with, but still cares for them). Meanwhile Adam must somehow escape from the room before Gordon kills him.

But in that tape hides a secret message. a message that briefly says "follow your heart". What does that mean, one of them asks. Using Gordon's good eye, he catches that the bathroom toilet has a heart painted on it. "Why don't you check inside" he asks Adam, who reluctantly reaches inside the bowl, and makes a remark about no 'solids'. Had he tried the toilet cover, Adam would've discovered the horrifying secret of a garbage bag containing two rusty old hack-saws. Adam finally checks the cover. And to his surprise...finds rusty hack-saws! "Wish i should have checked there first" he states. The saws do little to no help at cutting loose the thick chains that the two are attached to. But Gordon realizes something is rather fishy: "He doesn't want us to cut through the chains...he want's us to cut through are feet".

The twists don't stop there! Jigsaw has this 'method' of teaching his victims the value of life,(one example is Amanda Young, who Jigsaw tested by strapping a reverse-bear trap device around her head. She testified by saying "he helped me". Little did we know, those 3 simple words would spawn off six more sequels) and not to take their life for granted, he just does it in a gruesomely bloody, disgusting way. Sooner or later, Gordon was remembering from the past that he was involved with the police as being a Jigsaw suspect when two detectives, Tapp and Sing found the doctors penlight at one of Jigsaw's crime scenes. Detective Tapp has an obsession with solving the Jigsaw case. So much in fact that he has newspaper clippings of all the murder articles AND his own video surveillance camera feeding images directly to Dr. Gordon's house! "You need yourself a girlfriend" jokes Sing as the two find a break in the case and head to Jigsaw's lair.

Once inside the building, they find all the evidence they need. But all of a sudden, he appears. Jigsaw slashes Tapp's throat and Sing runs away like a coward trying to get out of the little house of horrors but meets his demise as he gets blown away by a quadruple shot-gun blast to the head. As the clock ticks closer, Zep, a man who is watching Adam and Gordon on a TV screen, has to make sure Gordon carries out the deed or else he dies from a slow acting poison that Jigsaw drugged him with. Little by little, Adam comes up with a plan. The two carry out the plan, but fail. Now times are getting rough, and in desperate needs, don't we all just lose it? Well, Dr. Gordon loses it once he finds out that they are being watched by Zep, who has kidnapped his wife and kid. Then, Adam spills the beans about him getting payed from Det. Tapp to spy on Gordon before the two found themselves trapped inside the bathroom.

This causes Adam to not believe Gordon, in which Gordon can't trust Adam anymore. All this stress on Gordon cause him to go ahead and saw off his foot! I'm not going to spoil all the twists and surprises as what happens next (but, I'm sure all of you in the MW community have seen the movie anyways) in the end, Saw concludes with an amazing cliff-hanger, never-saw-that-coming twist ending; That will leave you shocked and speechless (as it did for me).

Now onto the next subject of the Pro's of Saw:

The film Saw has many great things about it. From the opening clue scene of Adam flushing the key down the bath tub drain, to the red herrings and the double meaning phrases. Plus, the killings and gore this movie has, is impressive for a film that had a budget of what, 2 million dollars? Impressive I say. This movie also includes the psychological theme of trust and paranoia.

Where to begin..oh where to begin.

Being that this is the first film in a seven movie franchise, I can't go into attention to detail without stepping a foot in Spoiler Territory, so I will say this: it helps if you pay attention. You might notice things closely if you look at the drawing pad on John Kramer's lap (the hospital patient that Dr. Gordon takes care of, who has an inoperable frontal-lobe tumor) you'll notice a certain something drawn on the blank sheet of paper. The puzzling clues to Amanda Young's quote "He helped me" really set out to span the Saw universe into a more cryptic and puzzling franchise.

Other than Saw being a great thought provoking psychology experiment in horror film genre, it really nails the ace in the hole of gore. The dead body, who blew a hole in his head, having the blood trail down towards Gordon is a scary effect. The raw and gritty trap of which Amanda endures is probably one of the most talked about scene in the film (which helped market the movie and hyped it up) is absolutely bloody wonderful to watch. From the opening remark she makes about "waking up, all I could taste in my mouth was blood, and metal" to the pain of knowing her victim that had the key inside his stomach was paralyzed with a drug and could feel everything as she stabs him multiple times and goes through his intestines (really hard to watch if you're not a fan of blood) to retrieve the key and escapes from the jaws of death, is quite the rush!

Then you have the flash-backs. Trust me when I saw this, the flash-backs aren't as crazy as they are in Lost, but they are more of another piece of the puzzle to fill in the missing gaps in the films plot holes. Other than that, I love the trickiness in Saw, if only I could share all of the good stuff with you! Oh well, we can always discuss it later when it comes to reviewing II, III, IV, V, VI, and The Final Chapter (VII) so we could fit everything chronologically and talk about the many snaking and looping around itself that the movies do. Which brings us to our next subject: The cons of Saw.

Even though, their are a lot of fun and cool little Easter eggs in the movie, let's get real and talk about the bad stuff (and I'm not talking about Jigsaw's evil-doings) I'm talking about the plot holes, bad editing, timing, pacing, the WHOLE enchilada...well, maybe just half, since I could never finish eating one haha! Anyways, back on track. Where was I again? Oh yeah, the cons of the movie. First off let me just say all movies have some type of flaw in them; weather the movie be the greatest film of all time or an Oscar winner for Best Picture, all movies have something wrong about them. Not everything's perfect you know?

Let me begin with talking about the shoddy editing. This movie has about two, maybe three story lines in it, and I think the editor had a trouble keeping track of which story should have more screen-time: Gordon and Adam, or Tapp and Sing? Sometimes the movies flash-backs and twists often get snarled in the wire also. It might confuse viewers at some points in the film, it did for me, and every time I viewed Saw, I always find something that makes me say "I understand that now, when I didn't before". Like, for example: When Dr. Gordon is explaining to Adam how he was involved with a Jigsaw case, the movie continues on with the flash back story making the audience believe this is linear with the story line of Adam and Gordon. Confusing isn't it? But watching this movie as a first timer, you'll be completely engrossed with the main story and finding out what the outcome is. But, watching this as an experienced fan who has seen all the Saw films, it takes away the surprise and twists, but still makes them fun to watch. That's another thing, it's fun to figure out and guess how it ends, but once you know...it ruins itself for you.

Let's see, we got the plot out of the way, I told you my favorite pros about the film, and the bad cons it contains; now I'll discuss the actors, directing, the writing, everything that makes a movie. I'll begin with the actors. Our main actors our Cary Elwes (who plays Dr. Gordon) Danny Glover (who plays Detective Tapp) Leigh Whannell (Adam Stoneheight) Ken Leung (Detective Sing) Tobin Bell (Jigsaw/John Kramer) Shawnee Smith (Amanda Young) and Michael Emerson who plays Zep as well as Monica Potter, who stars as Gordon's bitchy wife. Now I'm not going through every one of these actors roles and how they played their characters, but I'll make it short and brief as I can tell this review is getting rather lengthy and might take longer to read than it does to sit through an extended cut of Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

First, we have Cary Elwes. Cary was sent a tape of the original short film version of Saw (which is excellent by the way; and you can view it on the un-cut 2-disc special edition DVD copy) and said to himself "hey, this looks original, I've never seen this type of story told before, so I'll check it out". Sure enough, Elwes auditioned for the role of Dr. Gordon, and got the part. Cary Elwes does a decent amount of acting, and sometimes--over-acting, but that's him. He comes across as Nic Cage every now and then when he gets real dramatic in the acting department. But overall, does a good job at playing a key victim in the Saw franchise. Leigh Whannell, what can I say? He get's the best lines in the movie: "I don't care if you covered yourself in peanut butter and had a fifteen hooker gang-bang", "I went to bed in my sh*t hole apartment, and woke up in an actual sh*t hole", and of course, "my name is very f*cking confused, what's yours?!" Throughout the movie, Adam is a smart-ass and Whannell does it perfectly (for being a first time actor too). Plus the dude basically helped write and produce the movie, so of course he would star in it.

Shawnee Smith does an amazing job at playing her character, Amanda Young. Being the fact that she was only in the movie for say, 10 minutes, she did pretty well. And she did also another amazing job reprising the role of Amanda to star in Saw II, III, IV, (brief cameo in V), VI, and again, a brief cameo in Saw 3D: The Final Chapter. I'll go more in depth on her once I review the rest of the sequels. Danny Glover was being Danny Glover as usual, had that crazed maniac cop theme going well, and his partner co-star, Ken Leung was good as Detective Sing. Monica Potter, who played Gordon's wife was just a whiny bitch who complained too much. If that was her job, then she damn well did her job good! Then we have Tobin Bell. This guy is a legend! For a solid two weeks he did nothing except lie on the cold bathroom floor the whole time they were filming the movie. How easy of a job is that?! Last, but not least, is the great Michael Emerson. Michael Emerson also plays another favorite character of mine: Ben Linus from Lost. (Which, the funny thing is, if you think about it, Lost and Saw have a lot in common) Emerson delivers well as a creepy guy known only as Zep.

I know I'm leaving out Dina Meyer who plays the cop investigator, Kerry, but I'm saving her character de-construct for later installment reviews. (Not sure if I still have your attention, but if you're reading this sentence you've survived to make it towards the end, but my review isn't over just yet.) I still haven't talked about the director, James Wan. Mr. Wan's directorial debut is Saw. Now, he convinced a team of people to work with him, and gathered a group of friends and found Lionsgate to produce/distribute the movie. Considering this was filmed in less then two weeks, i can tell he did a good job getting it done. Writing the script was fine, it had some choppy dialogue but was intriguing to keep me interested with it's hidden clues to the 'read between the lines' writing.

The score for Saw was outstanding! "Hello Zep", the Saw film theme has got to be one of my favorite movie scores next to Star Wars, James Bond, Harry Potter, Jaws, Indiana Jones and so on. What's interesting is that they consistently change the score for each Saw film to have it's own uniqueness...which is brilliant to do; because I've never heard a movie to do hat before besides Pirates of the Caribbean and Harry Potter.

In conclusion, Saw is in fact one of the most original, if not psychological horror (next to Se7en and Alien) films I've seen in a long time. From it's mysterious characters, to it's amazing twist ending; the movie delivers on the gore and has shock value, but sometimes it stumbles under the writing and gets tangled up in editing problems, but is nonetheless, an entertaining fun Halloween scare film to watch with a group of friends for a bloody-good time! Well, you made it through my first review! Hope you enjoyed reading it, and look forward to more reviews from me soon :)

Please comment below and let me know what you think.

-McLovin