By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 1.5 cats
Director: James Wan
Starring: Cary Elwes | Danny Glover | Dina Meyer | Ken Leung | Leigh Whannell | Mike Butters
Country: united_states
Year: 2004
Running time: 100
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387564/combined
Chadd says: “‘SAW has had a fairly good marketing campaign because of its distribution. One of the tag-lines to this marketing
was the favorable comparison to the David Fincher film SEVEN. SEVEN happens to encapsulate all that I enjoy about films in the horror/suspense/crime genre. SAW, however, encapsulates only the style, but not the substance of the aforementioned thriller.
“The central premise has a great deal of merit- two men awaken, chained to an array of pipes, in a filthy public bathroom. On the floor in front of them is the corpse of an apparent suicide victim. The two men quickly learn that they are caught up in the diabolical machinations of a serial killer who doesn’t actually kill his victims, rather, his victims die via their own choices and actions. They must understand their situation and try to work together in order to ‘solve’ the macabre ‘puzzle’ the killer has placed them in.
“Within the first 10 minutes, I began to worry about the quality of the film. This was due to the caliber of acting by the two principals- Cary Elwes and Leigh Whannell (who also co-wrote the screenplay). Though I believe the film which Elwes has his most noted role- THE PRINCESS BRIDE – is a classic on many levels, the acting craft within that film is not one of those levels. Elwes is respectable enough to convey the plot, but not capable of delivering the gut-wrenching, emotional climaxes that the script calls for. Leigh is also respectable in his role, but again fails to convince the audience of the multitude of emotions
that his characters needs to display.
“More troublesome than this is the film’s seeming insistence to provide shocks, twists, and turns. I won’t go into details on these, but suffice to say, once the credits start to roll, a hundred questions popped into my head dealing with the internal logic of the film. Unfortunately, upon the merest of inspection, none of these questions are answered respectably. This is not merely as simple as suspension of disbelief- this is trying to brush aside actual fallacies that the film itself presents.
“Finally, in a film that tries to plant itself firmly within the ‘new’ horror camp with its emphasis on the physiological aspects of the crimes presented and eschewing just a gory hack and slash fest (though there is plenty of gore to be contained within the film), the film still dredges up the old, hoary, horror cliches a bit too much for my liking. How many times will we see the villain
threatened with a gun by a character seemingly firmly in command of the situation and then have that character lose all that command when the villain again gets the upper hand because the character refuses to act against (or shoot) the villain? How many times must we see the character aware of something amiss, let his or her guard down at the first opportunity, and then have the villain pop out?
“I believe my disappointment from viewing this film Ultimately stems from the potential that the premise has. SAW is truly an example of wasted potential- a great set-up and a completely blown execution. 1.5 cats.”