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Saw (2004)Rating: 3 Stars (out of 4) The Game Is AfootBy Jeffrey M. Anderson
Two other recent films started this way, Cube (1998) and Dark City (1998), and both have become cult classics. Saw may be destined for the same. These first-time filmmakers -- writer/director James Wan and co-writer/actor Leigh Whannell unfold their story slowly -- giving information only as it's required or unexpected. Adam (Whannell) climbs out of his bathtub and takes in his surroundings. It's a disgusting industrial bathroom with lots of huge pipes winding all over the walls and ceiling. He has no shoes on and his ankle is locked and chained to one of the pipes. A man lies in a pool of blood in the middle of the floor, a gun in one hand and a tape recorder in the other. A third man, a live one, Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) is chained to the opposite side of the room. According to clues that eventually emerge, one of the men in the bathroom must kill the other by a certain time or they will both die. Apparently, a psychotic killer likes to test people to see how far they'll go to save their own lives. He locks them in rooms and provides them with near-impossible puzzles. Without going much further, Danny Glover plays a cop hot on the killer's trail, and Monica Potter co-stars as Dr. Gordon's long-suffering wife. Saw has a surprising amount of tricks up its sleeve. As we leave the little room we learn more about our killer and the other scenarios he's cooked up for his hapless victims (only one has ever escaped). We also learn more about our two prisoners and their sordid secrets. The film stumbles only a little toward the end as it begins to slide into a chase/shootout finale before springing the final, unexpected blow at us. Whannell and Wan originally meant to shoot Saw themselves as a low-budget horror pic before they found funding for an "A"-list cast, and it's a good thing they waited. It packs more clever ideas into its 100-minute running time than any ten slasher films. Though it can get grisly at times -- Wan has a predilection for disturbingly fast camera movements during tense moments -- it's a constantly surprising and extraordinarily tense Halloween treat. Starring: Leigh Whannell, Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, Ken Leung, Dina Meyer, Monica Potter |
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