Saw (2004)

THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!

The Saw franchise has always repulsed me. Not because of the apparent gorefest it features. No, it is the fact that each film has been released year after year, apparently showing exactly the same story but murdering its victims in different ways, similar to the Final Destination franchise.

This constant churning out of films offended me in some way. They all appeared to be complete and utter cash cows, made solely to make money rather than to produce good cinema. It is the main reason why I have avoided the franchise until this day.

In this series of blogs I will be looking at each of the Saw films individually, from 2004 to 2010 (not including the initial pitch from 2003). I will be writing my views on the film as well as a brief summary of the plots as soon as I have finished watching the film, to be posted (hopefully) daily. I don’t know if I will like these films or not, though I’m not going in with any high hopes. So let’s start from the beginning.

The film (created by James Wan and Leigh Whannell) opens to two men being locked in a room, chained to pipes on opposite ends of the room, a dead man laying in the middle of the room, holding a tape recorder and a gun, most probably used to blow his brains out. The living men are Adam (Leigh Whannell) and  Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes). For the first 15 minutes of the film the two men fumble around the room, trying to piece together the puzzle laid before them.

Lawrence is given the instructions that he can only escape if he kills Adam within 6 hours. If he doesn’t then he will die, Adam will die and Lawrence’s wife and daughter will be killed. The men find, through clues, that there are two saws in a bag in the room, not strong enough to cut through the chains, but seemingly strong enough to cut through their legs.

After these first 15 minutes, the majority of the story is now told through flashback, which shows other victims, the people involved in the investigation as well as the family of Lawrence. We find out that the reason people are put in these situations is that the killer believes they do not value their lives enough, and so must now be force to appreciate their lives to the fullest.

The story told is surprisingly unlike what I expected it to be. I expected, most probably from trailers and hearsay, that the film would be full of gore, violence, mutilation and dismemberment. But there is a surprising amount of plot in this film. In fact, at its core, Saw is a crime thriller, similar to David Fincher’s Seven. In fact, the creators of the film were directly influenced by Seven and it really shows. There are similar elements to the plot and the investigation, though not focussed on to a great extent, feels somewhat similar. In fact, the villain of the film feels like a carbon copy of John Doe, the murderer in Seven.

Nonetheless, as its own story it holds up pretty well. There are a few twists and turns that take place in the film that were almost impossible to see coming and the ending was damn well sublime, bringing together everything from the film, from beginning to end, to create one massive “What the fuck?” moment. However, there are some parts of the film that seem a bit silly. A few times I was looking at the situation and wondering why they were acting as they were when there was a far simpler solution to their problems right in front of them.

Sadly, the film missed opportunities to build up tension by making it seem as if Lawrence might kill Adam. Also, the fact that what Adam and Lawrence seem to do for the majority of those 6 hours they have to figure out how to escape is talk about Lawrence’s past, which seems like a waste of time and took me out of the film a little.

Acting in this film is pretty good as well. Some of the characters are played a bit too stereotypically, being purely one-dimensional, but most characters are likeable and it is easy to understand why they act the way they do. Sadly, Cary Elwes let down the acting at times, sometimes putting in a laughable performance.

As a whole, I found Saw to be a pretty good crime thriller, though not quite up to par with the likes of Seven.  Produced on a small budget of $700,000 it gets the job done and doesn’t overstay its welcome.

Wait... I still have 6 more films to watch. Man, I hope they are up to par with this one...

Final Verdict: 7/10