Saw (film)

SAW
File:Saw poster.JPG Saw film poster
Directed by	James Wan
Written by	James Wan Leigh Whannell
Produced by	Gregg Hoffman Peter Block Lark Bernini
Starring	Cary Elwes Leigh Whannell Danny Glover Monica Potter
Cinematography	David A. Armstrong
Edited by	Kevin Greutert
Music by	Charlie Clouser Fear Factory Pitbull Daycare Front Line Assembly
Distributed by	Lions Gate Entertainment
Release dates	October 29, 2004
Running time	102 min.
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$1,200,000 (estimated)

Saw is a 2004 horror movie, directed by James Wan and co-written by Wan and Leigh Whannell. The movie took only 18 days to film and was first shown at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2004 and saw an international release later that year on October 29. The film is #3 on Bravo's Even Scarier Movie Moments. A sequel, Saw II, was released on October 28, 2005 and another, Saw III, was released on October 27, 2006.

The film was originally rated NC-17 for strong graphic violence. This version is available as Saw: Uncut Edition, a DVD special edition of Saw released around the same time that Saw II was released theatrically. The difference between the R rated and the unrated version is minimal.

Another Saw film (Saw IV), will be released on October 26, 2007. As of February 2007, it is not yet known if it will be a sequel or a prequel.

Taglines:

• Every puzzle has its pieces
• Every piece has a puzzle
• How much blood would you shed to stay alive?
• Live or die? Make your choice.

Plot

As the film begins, an unconscious man is submerged in an old bathtub, in the dark. There is a small flashlight floating around in the tub. Upon awakening, the man thrashes out of the bathtub in a panicked state, pulling the plug and draining the water, which takes the flashlight with it. He hears a voice from elsewhere in the room, and moments later, several ceiling lights turn on, revealing the area to be a grimy industrial bathroom with a man on the opposite end. The man introduces himself as Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes), a surgeon, while the man from the bathtub is revealed to be a photographer named Adam Faulkner (Leigh Whannell). The two are chained to pipes in opposite corners of the room, and in the center is a bloody corpse. The corpse holds a revolver in one hand, and a tape recorder in the other.

Adam and Gordon discover envelopes in their pockets with their names written on them. Inside are cassette tapes labeled "Play Me". Dr. Gordon's envelope also contains a key and a single bullet. Adam uses his shirt and the bathtub plug to retrieve the tape recorder, and puts his tape in first. An ominous voice informs him that he spends every day feeding on others, and for once he will have to make his own choices and fend for himself unless he wants the bathroom to be "the room that you die in." Lawrence gives Adam his tape, and on it Dr. Gordon is given an ultimatum: kill Adam before the clock on the wall reaches six P.M., or his wife and family will die. The tape also reveals that the man in the center of the room committed suicide, because "when there is that much poison in your blood, the only thing left to do is shoot yourself."

Lawrence hears a quiet message hidden at the end of the tape: "Follow your heart." Looking in the toilet tank (which has a crude heart drawn on it), a plastic bag containing two rusty saws is discovered. Both attempt to saw through their chains, but it is quickly evident that the saws are too weak to cut through. Adam's breaks, and he throws it across the room in anger, breaking one of the large mirrors above the sinks.

File:AdamSawLawrence.jpg

Adam Faulkner (Leigh Whannell) awakens to find himself chained in a large, industrial washroom, along with Dr. Lawrence Gordon. (Cary Elwes).

Dr. Gordon explains that, based on their situation, he believes their captor to be the notorious Jigsaw Killer, and that while Lawrence knows about him mostly through media reports, he was once suspected to be the killer himself.

In various flashback sequences, two detectives, David Tapp (Danny Glover) and Steven Sing (Ken Leung), are shown examining the aftermaths of the Jigsaw Killer's deadly traps and their victims. These include Paul and Mark. Paul had attempted suicide by slashing his wrists, but Jigsaw claims he was merely "seeking attention," as he was a perfectly well man. Jigsaw's "game" is that Paul is intricately trapped in a razor wire maze, stripped of his most of his clothes, and a door at the other end of the room that is set on a timer to close at 3pm (the time when Paul wakes up is 1:04pm). Jigsaw says that if he wants to die, he can just remain in the place he started, but if he wants to live, he will "have to cut [himself] again." Paul attempts to escape, but ends dying of massive blood loss. The female investigator says that "he cut himself so deeply we found traces of stomach acid on the floor." Mark was caught by Jigsaw for pretending to be ill when in fact he was always "up and about" (which Jigsaw has pictures of). Mark's game involved him in a dark room, also stripped of most of his clothes, which contains only a safe and a candle on a table. Jigsaw says the key to the door to get out the room is inside the safe, and the combination to the safe is written on the walls (there is in fact hundreds of numbers written all across the room, making it nearly impossible to decipher the combination). There is also broken glass all over the floor. Because of the darkness, the candle is supplied as his source of light to read the combination on the walls, but Mark is told to be careful, as his entire body is covered in a flammable substance. We see Mark racing around the room trying to read the combination on the walls, eventually setting himself on fire. At the scene of Mark's death, Detective Kerry (Dina Meyer) notes that Jigsaw likes to "book himself a front row seat to his own sick games" as evidenced by a hole in the wall that allowed Jigsaw to watch Mark attempt to complete his test. She also gives Detectives Tapp and Sing a penlight discovered at the scene that belongs to Dr. Gordon.

Dr. Gordon is teaching some interns about an inoperable cancer patient. He is interrupted by hospital orderly Zep (Michael Emerson), and told that the patient's name is John, and Gordon says that oftentimes the orderlies "form a special bond" with the patients. He is then called away by the detectives, to discuss his place in the killings, but Gordon pleads innocence. Once the detectives clear Gordon's alibi that he was "seeing someone who wasn't a patient", he is allowed to go, but is first asked to listen to Jigsaw's only surviving victim, Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith). Shaken, Amanda explains how she narrowly escaped her test. She says Jigsaw 'helped' her, as Jigsaw's games are designed to help people appreciate life, rather than accept death (in Amanda's case, curing her of her heroin addiction).

As the flashbacks end and the film returns to the present, Adam notices the broken mirror is actually a one-way mirror, and upon breaking the rest of it, they discover a video camera recording their movements. Unable to make progress, Gordon begins thinking about the last thing he said to his daughter, Diana (Makenzie Vega). Another flashback sequence begins, with Diana leaving her room as if she has had a nightmare. She wakes her mother, Alison (Monica Potter), claiming there is a man in her room. They retrieve Gordon, who appears to be distracted by his work, and almost allows his wife to tuck Diana in, but finishes at the last second and takes Diana to her room. Gordon says there's no such thing as the "bad man". She tells him that she's still scared, and Gordon recites This Little Piggy while counting her toes, which cheers her up until his pager goes off, which is clearly a constant interruption. As Gordon goes to leave, Diana asks if Lawrence is going to leave forever. Lawrence tells her he would never abandon Diana or her mother. After Gordon leaves, she hears a voice say, "Good night, little girl," and sees an eye watching her from inside the closet. She screams. Her mother rushes in to find a man, covered entirely by a blanket, grabbing Diana. She tries to stop him, but they are both subdued and tied to the foot of a bed.

Meanwhile, Detective Tapp, still convinced that Dr. Gordon is the true identity of the Jigsaw Killer, has taken up residence in an apartment across from the building where Dr. Gordon lives, using a video camera to record Gordon's activities. It is revealed in another flashback that Tapp discovered the location of Jigsaw's hideout from watching Amanda's video, and he and Detective Sing went to apprehend Jigsaw alone. Upon reaching his hideout, they discover a number of things, including a diorama of the bathroom where Dr. Gordon and Adam are being held, and a man tied to a chair with two drills mounted on each side. Sing and Tapp attempt to free him, but Jigsaw makes his return while they are trying to figure out the device. Tapp makes the rash decision to try to hide and watch Jigsaw, and when they leap out to arrest him, Jigsaw activates the drills on the chair. Sing shoots the drills, stopping it, but Jigsaw uses a hidden knife to cut open Tapp's throat, and Sing follows Jigsaw alone. He shoots Jigsaw in the back, but accidentally trips a wire, setting off multiple shotguns, killing him instantly. In the present, it becomes clear that Tapp is no longer with the police force, and his obsession with catching the killer borders on insanity.

Back in the bathroom, Dr. Gordon gives Adam his wallet so that Adam can see a photograph of his daughter. Gordon tells Adam that his favorite photograph is one with all of them in it, but when Adam goes to look for it, he instead finds a Polaroid photo of Diana and Alison bound and gagged. On the back, there is the hint that "sometimes you can see more with your eyes closed". Adam convinces Gordon to turn out the lights, and they discover an X on the wall (Gordon's tape mentions that "X marks the spot for the clue"). Gordon breaks the wall open and finds two cigarettes, a lighter, and a cell phone that only receives calls. There is also a note, that Dr. Gordon does not show Adam that says "the cigarettes are harmless", and that he doesn't "need a gun to kill Adam". Dr. Gordon dips one of the cigarettes in the poisoned blood on the floor near him, and places it back inside the box. He tries the phone, which doesn't work, but the sound causes him to remember his kidnapping inside a parking garage.

Adam, eager for the cigarettes, agrees to pretend to die for the sake of the camera watching them. Dr. Gordon pretends to give him the poisoned cigarette, but gives him the other one instead. Adam smokes, then performs a terrible, goofy, melodramatic fake death and lies on the floor. Moments later, Adam's chain is abruptly electrified, delivering him a painful shock and ruining the ruse. Dr. Gordon doesn't believe that Adam has been shocked, but Adam meanwhile remembers his own kidnapping, from his apartment.

Dr. Gordon receives a call from Alison. Alison informs him that Adam knows more than he is revealing, and hangs up. Dr. Gordon subsequently gets Adam to reveal that he is a photographer, paid to spy on him. Adam witnessed Dr. Gordon going to a hotel with the intent to cheat on his wife, but Dr. Gordon reveals that he simply left. Through more fighting, it is also revealed that Detective Tapp paid Adam to take the pictures. Adam reveals that the bag holding the hacksaws from the toilet tank is filled with his photographs, and he throws them at Dr. Gordon. Adam notices something in a photograph among the pile he hadn't noticed before, and upon handing it to Gordon, Gordon recognizes Zep from the hospital and is outraged. Soon afterwards, the time limit displayed in the room expires.

At Dr. Gordon's home, Zep watches the timer count down in the living room. Back in the bedroom, Alison undoes the ropes tying her hands and moves to untie Diana, but Zep returns to the bedroom and Alison pretends to be tied up. Zep instructs her to tell Dr. Gordon that the game is over, and she agrees.

Dr. Gordon receives another call on the cell phone from his wife. She says "You failed", but quickly leaps up, attempting to wrestle the gun from Zep's hands, which goes off. Dr. Gordon, however, cannot understand what is going on, and simply hears screaming and gunshots. He becomes enraged, and hangs up, throwing the phone in anger. Detective Tapp sees the gunshots on his video camera, and races over to the apartment. Alison manages to pull a pair of scissors from her dresser and stabs Zep in the leg with them, as Tapp bursts in. Zep's attention is drawn away from Alison and Diana and to Tapp, and they attempt to gun one another down. Knocking Tapp down, Zep hisses, "I'm going to kill your husband, now, Mrs. Gordon," and leaves. Tapp follows.

Alison calls back on the phone. Upset, Gordon turns to answer it but finds he has thrown it out of his reach. He becomes hysterical, crying and screaming that he has to save his family, while Adam attempts to get him to calm down. Instead, Gordon's chain is electrified, and Dr. Gordon is shocked into unconsciousness. Adam throws bits of rock at Gordon to get him to wake up, terrified, but when Gordon awakes, he is dazed and delirious. He attempts to saw at his chains again, fails, and finally breaks, tying his shirt around his ankle like a tourniquet. Adam screams as Dr. Gordon takes the hacksaw to his ankle. Gordon slices his foot off, then crawls over to the corpse, taking the gun and loading it with his bullet, telling Adam that, "you have to die." He fires, hitting Adam in the chest. Adam collapses.

Detective Tapp and Zep chase each other to an industrial warehouse. Inside, they continue to fire at each other, until Detective Tapp grabs Zep's gun. They wrestle over it, Tapp trying to pull the gun up and over from in front of Zep, but instead Zep slides to the floor and the gun spins around, firing and hitting Detective Tapp square in the chest. Tapp dies, and Zep moves on. He arrives in the bathroom to find Dr. Gordon, hysterical and pale. Gordon screams for Zep to release his family, but Zep turns his gun on him, saying that despite "completing his test", Dr. Gordon needs to die, as "it's the rules."

At the last second, Adam springs to life, grabbing Zep around the ankles and pulling him to the floor. He grabs the lid of the toilet tank and beats Zep in the head and chest repeatedly, until the lid breaks in half. Dr. Gordon tells Adam that he's going to get help, but Dr. Gordon is shaking and getting more and more pale, and his wound is bleeding. Dr. Gordon promises he will be back, but Adam is still upset.

Alone, Adam reaches through Zep's pockets, looking for a key. Instead, he finds a tape recorder, and turns it on in horror: Hello, Mr. Hindle. Or as they called you around the hospital: Zep. I want you to make a choice. There's a slow-acting poison coursing through your system, which only I have the antidote for. Will you murder a mother and her child to save yourself? Listen carefully, if you will; there are rules.

The 'corpse' in the middle of the room rises and strips off pieces of rubber mask from his head and face. He reveals himself to be the inoperable cancer patient 'Jigsaw' and has been observing events in the room all along.

He tells Adam, "The key to that chain is in the bathtub," and in a quick flashback, we see that the key was attached to the flashlight that went down the drain when Adam woke up. Adam grabs the gun on floor, but Jigsaw pushes a button, electrifying Adam's chain again, and causing Adam to collapse.

Jigsaw steps into the doorway and takes hold of the door. Adam screams. We hear Jigsaw's message to Amanda, his only survivor: "Most people are so ungrateful to be alive. But not you. Not anymore." "Game over," he says, shutting the door, locking Adam inside. Adam's screams are heard over the credits.

Cast

Actor	Role
Cary Elwes	Dr. Lawrence Gordon
Leigh Whannell	Adam Faulkner
Danny Glover	Det. David Tapp
Julie Kavner	Alison Gordon
Tobin Bell	John Kramer / Jigsaw
Ken Leung	Det. Steven Sing
Dina Meyer	Det. Kerry
Michael Emerson	Zep Hindle
Mike Butters	Paul Stallberg
Paul Gutrecht	Mark Rodriguez
Benito Martinez	Brett
Shawnee Smith	Amanda Young
Makenzie Vega	Diana Gordon
Ned Bellamy	Jeff

Response

Saw was a financial success: shot on a meager budget of about US$1.2 million, it earned over $55 million at the box office in the U.S. alone and $102,917,772 worldwide

Critical responses were mixed: Saw earned a 45% rating from Rotten Tomatoes, and a 29% rating from the "cream of the crop" (the most esteemed professional critics), qualifying it as "rotten." Audience response was largely positive, as Saw has both a 74% "fresh" user rating at Rotten Tomatoes, and a 7.6 score on the Internet Movie Database.

Trivia

• The movie bears strong ressemblences with a 2001 french short film named Pâques man ("Egg man"). In the latter, a man is abducted and wakes up in a locked up bath room. A maniac explains him via TV that the key to the room is hidden in some kinder eggs put under his skin. To escape the victim will have to cut himself with a scalpel, but if he fails to do so in a 3 minutes time, a bomb will kill him anyway. The methods of the killer (making people hurt themselves to stay alive, talking to them by TV) and the global atomsphere of the film are very close from Saw's.

See also

• List of traps in the Saw film series
• Twist ending
• Saw II
• Saw III

External links

• Official site
• Saw at IMDb
• Saw at Rotten Tomatoes
• Official Message Board