Since I am restarting my reviews with a sequel, it probably bears some stepping back to discuss its predecessors. I have long been a fan of Saw. While often credited (or blamed) with ushering in the era of torture porn, Saw is more than anything else a thriller, an effective one. Saw is – essentially – two men trapped in a room, trying to solve the puzzle of how they got there and how (and whether) they will escape. Saw is a small-cast theater production. And, for all its association with torture porn,Saw is surprisingly bloodless, the majority of the gore taking place off-screen and letting the imagination fill in all the bloody blanks. I resisted seeing the sequels for a long time. I assumed from what I heard that they went in a different direction from the original – more focus on the traps than on character development – and I had no desire to see a lot of gratuitous blood and violence.
Until I introduced my son to the original. My son likes sequels. At his behest, I sat through all of theHellraiser sequels, most of them god-awful (Deader being a pleasant exception). And the Child’s Play sequels (you may skip directly to Bride of Chucky and move on from there). And the Paranormal Activity sequels, which get better as they go along (heresy, I know). As soon as my son heard there was more Saw to be had, he insisted that we watch the sequels. He likes blood & gore, too, so that was even more of an appeal.
I admit, I was wrong about the sequels, with respect to Saw II and Saw III. I didn’t like that they were more ensemble pieces than “two guys in a room”, but I found the stories of Detective Matthews and Jeff Denlon engaging. Yes, some of the acting was weak. Yes, some of the logical jumps were long. But I really enjoyed the complexity of the timelines and the development of John (Jigsaw) and Amanda as characters. The sequels also add to the story: each film explains or puts into new context something of the previous films, as well as adding new details. I also respect the temporal sleight-of-hand used to play on the assumptions of the viewer. For example, the assumption in Saw IIthat Detective Matthews’ and Daniel’s timelines are parallel, when in fact the one is several hours later than the other.
Which brings us to Saw IV, which really requires two reviews.
Review One: If you haven’t seen Saw II and Saw III, skip this movie. You will be utterly lost and confused and will hate it, even if you like the traps and the gore.
This is my biggest complaint about the Saw franchise – that the movies do not stand on their own. There is always the assumption, like a prerequisite for a college class, that viewers have seen and understood the previous films. If they haven’t, they’re welcome to muddle along as best they can, but they won’t get everything the film has to offer. Oddly, the original Saw is the one least needed to follow Saw IV.
Review Two: Even if you have seen the movies so far, Saw IV is still a difficult film to follow. There are two main storylines. In one, Officer Rigg (the black SWAT team dude in Saw II) must solve a series of tests involving additional Jigsaw victims in order to save the life of Detective Matthews (the white detective in Saw II). In the other, FBI Agents Strahm and Perez try to track down Jigsaw’s OTHER assistant (i.e., not Amanda), who they believe to be a police officer. There are also flashbacks to both Jigsaw’s and Officer Rigg’s past, show how each one became the man he is now).
Confused yet?
The action cuts rapidly between the storylines, often using techniques that appear to make the lines merge. John turns away from his wife in the hospital and looks through a window, revealing an interrogation room where Agent Strahm questions John’s wife several years in the future. These transitions add to the coolness factor, but don’t make the story any easier to follow.
Detective Hoffman seems to have come out of nowhere; I don’t remember him at all in the previous movies, and yet he seems to have been a significant enough character to bring forward. And he and Agent Strahm look so much a like that I kept asking myself, “Ok, now which one is this?” Not a good thing when one is a major protagonist and the other is a victim.
Despite all this, if you can get through the confusion relatively unscathed, Saw IV is a fun time that adds a lot to the larger story of Jigsaw and Amanda and Doctor Gordon and Detective Matthews and Officer Rigg and Agent Strahm and how they and their stories are all interconnected. Great art? No. Great time? Yes?
