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Review by MvMMDI
Added: October 26, 2004
Our feature film spares no time at getting into the action and immediately starts out with Adam (Leigh Whannell) waking up in a dark room with no recollection of how he got here. As he starts to panic and scream due to his situation, he hears a voice telling him that screaming won't do any good. The man attached to the voice turns on the light and introduces himself as Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes). With the lights on, Adam can now see the magnitude of the situation he's in... they're both chained by the foot to pipes in an extremely dirty bathroom, and there's a corpse laying in a pool of blood on the ground between them with a gun in one hand and a tape player in the other. After discussing the situation amongst themselves for a bit, both guys find that they have a single cassette tape in their pockets with the words "Play Me" written on them. Adam manages to get the tape player out of the corpses hand and plays his tape. It criticizes him on how he's lived his life up until now, and that he's one pathetic man. Now, he can either find a way out of this room or die. Lawrence then plays his tape, which tells him that he must kill Adam by six o'clock or Lawrence's wife Diana (Makenzie Vega) and daughter Alison (Monica Potter) will be murdered. Meanwhile, detectives David Tapp (Danny Glover) and Steven Sing (Ken Leung) are working on tracking down a serial killer known as the Jigsaw Killer... but will they capture him in time?
I could sum this movie up with one word, and then leave the review at that... wow. But since you, the reader, came here to read my thoughts on the movie, I suppose I should come through with the goods. The first thing that I'd like to point out is that I watched the unrated cut of this movie, not the R-rated version that will be arriving in theaters this Friday. Therefore, I'm not sure which parts and how much will be cut out between the version I watched and the version movie-goers will see in their local theater. However, they would need to cut a good ten to twenty minutes to get this down to the Hollywood-norm in regards to graphic violence and imagery, and I really don't see how they could get away with cutting that much out. Comparing the running time on the version I watched and the version that will be in theaters, there's only a matter of a couple of minutes difference in the times, so I'd imagine that the end result will still be one brutal film. The methods of violence that the killer comes up with are beyond the level of insane that most are accustomed to, and more than a few are sure to make even the most hardened horror fan cringe upon witnessing them.
The storyline here flows in an interesting fashion, though it can be a bit hard to follow in the early stages of the movie. The main focus of the film is Adam and Lawrence and their situation, but the movie doesn't take place entirely in their location, either. Over time, both Adam and Lawrence have recollections of how they got to be where they are, and these flashbacks are intermingled with their attempts to figure out a way of getting themselves free. The movie also switches over to Detective Tapp on numerous occasions, and also gives him a couple of flashbacks of his own dealing with his involvement with the Jigsaw Killer case. With the rather large number of flashbacks going on during the movie, as well as the events that are actually happening to the characters, it sometimes gets a bit hard to follow as to what's actually going on in the current time frame, and what's merely a flashback to explain some things. Everything is revealed and makes sense in the end though, so this really isn't a problem. Speaking of that ending, holy wow... it easily ranks up there in the top three most shocking finales of all time. Unless you've had it spoiled for you ahead of time, I guarantee that you will not see it coming. Unlike other movies that attempt to end in this manner, the ending does make sense in the grand scheme of the movie and isn't there merely for the shock value, which makes things that much more effective. Couple all this praise with a rock-solid cast to play the events out (even Danny Glover pulls out a nice performance!), throw in a great soundtrack that's effective while not killing the mood of the movie, and you end up with one fantastic experience all the way through.
Overall, this movie is well worth the money and effort to go see it up on the big screen this Friday. I'm almost positive that if you're a fan of horror movies, thrillers, or just good old-fashioned serial killers, you will not leave that theater with any sort of disappointment in your mind. 10/10, easily.
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Saw
![Saw IV [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51RwOdDPeoL._SL75_.jpg "Saw IV [Blu-ray]")
