Column #23 - Guess What I SAW

Not too long ago I took in the movie, Saw. I'd heard some good things about it. Refreshingly chilling serial thriller, killer ending (sic), and a Usual Suspects-like twist completely out of left field. I expected Se7en; instead I got something entirely different, something angrier, something less interesting, and something less meaningful. Whereas I left Se7en exhausted but felt a sense of closure what with John Doe dead, the seven deadly sins fulfilled Gwyneth Paltrow's head in a box. All was right with the world...or maybe just this story. Leaving Saw, I felt the opposite. Exhausted, defeated, beaten, and utterly dissatisfied.

Thrillers are supposed to follow rules and break them at their own peril. It's kinda become the new set of rules: How far can one story go before illogic brings the entire structure crashing down. It's a challenge that has both emboldened the serial killer genre and destroyed it. Saw toyed with the rules, in some original ways mind you, but ultimately turned out to be a house of cards in which the motivations of the killer were whimsy rather than evil logic or revenge.

The Saw killer strikes out at friend and foe alike, with acts that are both heinous and imaginative, but its established that the killer (and I won't spoil the ending other than to say that if you can guess this one, you're quicker than I was, all that greeted my reaction was a giant, "Huh?") follows his own set of rules: find victim, trap victim in elaborate death game, give victim choice of maiming, killing, torturing self for a shot at surviving (only one person does and she looks like the left-over party favor of O.J. and Kobe). Oh yeah, he also cuts out jigsaw pieces in the skin, hence the name 'Saw'. All of which sets up an interesting premise. Too bad the movie doesn't follow it.

Maybe the problem lies in comparing any serial killer thriller with Se7en. That movie was so good, so shocking and satisfying in its own way, that any movie, no matter how good, will fall short. Saw doesn't fall with a thud, but an "oomph". It's shot in a similar dirty and grimy light, in a dirty dying dirty inner-city, did I mention it's dirty, that all movies have tried for since, you guessed it, Se7en. It's a unnamed s**thole, where the only thing worse than the public transportation are the people and their casual disregard for themselves and each other. Actually, in truth the majority of Saw is set in an actual s**thole, where two complete strangers finds themselves chained in the bathroom that Ewan McGregor passed over as too filthy in Trainspotting. Between the two of them is the following: two saws, a set of keys, a tape recorder, a gun, one bullet, and a corpse, which lies literally between the two.

The question becomes, "How far would you go to save your own life?" This is an interesting and thought-provoking and worth positing. Would you kill to save yourself? Would you murder? Would you maim, say cut off your leg? See that's the dilemma that our two characters face. One must kill the other, and then escape by cutting his own foot off. Not the rosiest of choices and more Sophia's choice than Win a Date with Tad Hamilton.

Will he or won't he is basically the crux of the movie but lest we forget Roger Ebert's famous axiom about every character have being related to every other character in a flick. It holds true for Saw, in some surprising and not so surprising ways. The two main characters are related not by marriage mind you, but by circumstances. They're also less scummy and sleazy and evil than you might assume. Nothing they did or said seemed to indicate the level of punishment and suffering. Nobody in the film deserves what happens to them. This is where Saw goes off the rail. I will say this for Saw though; it kicks you in the ass when you think you've got the killer's identity and motivation down. Believe me, you don't.

Could I recommend the movie? A better question would be why I would recommend against this movie? Ultimately, it's sat in the pit of my stomach gnawing away for a few weeks. I didn't enjoy the flick. That's ultimately what I have to contribute to any discussion or deep thought about Saw. I don't think I liked it. In fact, I'm pretty damn sure I didn't.

It's a well-crafted above-average serial killer story lacking in motivation for the entire cast but especially the killer, that ignores its own codes and rules, that flaunts its arrogance and self-importance way past the point of cockiness...Guess what, I didn't like Saw. But that doesn't mean that you might.
Jess Nakaska is an aspiring screenwriter always on the lookout for the next great script idea. He'll let you know if he finds it. Feel free to contact him at jessnakaska@hotmail.com.