Don't See Saw

I should've heeded the portents trying to keep me from seeing Saw. Two times I was supposed to see the film with someone else, and both times I was thwarted.

If I'd just listened to what Universe was trying to tell me, the film would've been able to remain in that land of gumdops and candy corn where everybody has a good time and nobody starts checking their watch after ten minutes to see how much longer they have to endure their torment.

On the way home I searched way back in my memory for a film that I was this disappointed by, and all I could come up with was John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars. I was looking forward to both films, and they both came up waaaay short.

For those who don't know, Saw is about two guys who are locked in a room by an evil genius and told they have to kill one another to escape. The premise is all fine and good, but then the filmmakers added about three layers of greasy, fetid crap on top and came out with a steaming turdpile of a film.

I could ruin the plot-twists for you, but it wouldn't matter because except for the last one, they're not really very surprising, and the subplots with Cary Elwes' character's (can he do just one movie where he plays an American that he doesn't slip out of his accent whenever he plays 'emotional?') wife and daughter and Danny Glover's detective character are utterly pointless and weigh the movie down unnecessarily when it should be centering on the two main characters.

Bad, cliched writing, barely adequate direction and scenery devouring actors combine to make this film barely watchable.

The filmmakers need to go and study the works of Japanese filmmakers such as Takashi Miike and learn how to do a proper tragedy/horror hybrid which they were trying to do.

And, for Chrissake, if you're going to do a plot point where a guy saws off his own foot to get out of a shackle, show some gore and spend a little money on a prosthetic stump, that covering his foot with a longer pantsleg is just bullshit.

Man, this movie really bummed me out. Ebert was too easy on it in giving it two stars.


1/2 babe (it only escapes a zero rating because I actually liked the little killer reveal at the end, but it came after two hours of wasted celluloid, cut about 90 minutes of this two hour film, and maybe I'd give it two babes).