Review

You wake up. You can't see anything. You realize that you are surrounded by water. Panicking, you jump up, terrified. You emerge from the water only to see nothing. Wherever you are is pitch black. You call out, looking for any semblance of where you are, what has happened to you, how you got where you are. You can feel your own tears streaming down your face. You begin to panic even more. Pushing yourself up, you realize you are in what seems like a bathtub and it is still dark. Now you are terrified, panicked, alone, and confused. You begin to breathe heavy when you hear a voice "Hello, are you there" it cries out. You think your mind is playing tricks on you then the lights come on. Bright, pulsing lights. Your eyes cannot focus, you see a blur, and that blur is talking to you. Asking "are you alright" and "who are you". Your eyes begin to focus, and you see what the situation is. You are in what appears to be an old bathroom. You are in an old tub, and there is a man about 50ft across the room from you. You see he's talking, but you have lost the concentration to listen. You pull yourself out of the bathtub, attempting to walk over to the man you realize you can't. You're leg is chained to a pipe. You look at the man across from you, he is chained too. "Am I dreaming?" - you begin to think to yourself. Then you notice the worst of it all. In the middle of this room, between you and the man across the way, you see another man. Lying face down in a pool of his own blood with a tape recorder in one hand, a gun in the other. This is not a dream, this is real. And this, is only the beginning few minutes of Saw.

Hey guys, The Outsider here. And this is how Saw begins, and continues for the next two hours. Two men trapped in this bathroom, chained to pipes, with a dead body in the middle. They are each given a hacksaw, not strong enough to cut through steel chains, but more than strong enough to cut through bone. This will not be a Disney ride.

Saw is very much in the same vein as Se7en. Gruesome serial killer, killing in imaginative ways, only to have a much larger agenda during the course of the film. The difference between the two is THIS killer likes to taunt his victims, giving them a chance to save themselves, if only they would torment themselves a whole hell of a lot in the meantime. The back story of the killer and his previous victims is told in flashbacks, though the main story in the bathroom is what keeps the movie going. This killer locks you in a room, trapped with some sort of puzzle to determine the outcome of you or another persons life and nothing more than a tape and a couple clues to help lead you out. And let me tell you, this thing gets intense through the course of it, the last 10 minutes alone are worth the price of admission.

So is this thing good? Hell yea it's good, haven't you been reading? Is it better than Se7en? No. It gets into the ballpark, but this is more Sammy Sosa than Babe Ruth. It just can't top the holy shit, "my wife's heads in a box" ending of Se7en. But like I said, it does come close. I won't disclose anything else about this one other than the setup, because I promise you, if you know too much, the payoff won't work as well. Oh, ok, I'll tell you the ending if you read below:

Brutal and in your face, no one is going to be a better person for watching this movie

The butler did it! That damn butler, always getting in the way! I'm not going to tell you the ending idiot, that's what you pay $6 for.

How's the acting? Pretty decent. Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride and scores of made-for-dvd flicks) is Dr. Lawrence Gordon, one of the two trapped bathroom attendants. I've always liked Cary, but I do think he was a bit over the top on this one. Leigh Whannell, who apparently wrote and directed, is Adam, the bathtub man. For a first time lead, he's actually better than the more experienced Elwes. Danny Glover is a crucial part of the back story, playing the cop going fruit-loops trying to catch this "Jigsaw Killer". (They call him that because he carves a little jigsaw puzzle piece from his victims, this guy has nothing but free time). There are a couple more supporting players, but honestly, it's all about the guys trapped in the crapper.

Like I said, I don't want to ruin it for anyone. I thought I had it figured out about 5 minutes in, then proceeded to switch back and forth throughout the movie. And I, people, rarely guess wrong in these kinds of movies. So, prepare to have you head officially jacked with.

Now, I saw this with fellow site master Lord Rowald, and he had an interesting point. At no point throughout the movie, do either of these yahoos try sawing through the pipe, which was corroded metal. Then I realized, the movie would be over in like, 15 minutes, screw that. Go for an ankle or something!

Saw starts very intense, gets a little less in the middle, and then gets back to full force near the last bit. So do I think it's a good flick? Hell yeah, you see I gave it a 6 rating didn't you? I liked it a lot, but to top Se7en would take a little bit better acting, and the intensity would have to keep building throughout. I probably would have even given this a solid high five except for some summabitch convinced me to cut my thumb off!