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 Films |
Release dates | October 29, 2004 |
Running time | 102 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1,200,000 (estimated) |
Saw is a 2004 thriller / 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 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 as Saw II. The difference between the R rated and the unrated version is minimal. 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.
Plot
Template:Spoiler The film begins with a man waking up completely submerged in a bathtub. As he panics, he involuntarily pulls the drain from the tub with his foot. As the water drains, a glowing blue object flies down with it. The young man gets out of the bathtub and stumbles off into a pitch black room, yelling for help. A disembodied voice responds, and the two converse and the lights turn on. The two men are face to face in an old, grimy, and apparently long deserted, industrial washroom with no windows, and seemingly no way out (besides a large sliding factory door). The man who escaped from the bathtub is a young photographer named Adam Faulkner (Leigh Whannell); on the other side of the room is a surgeon named Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes). They are both chained by their ankles to pipes, and in between them, in the center of the room, is a corpse, who has died from a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. The corpse holds in one hand a .357 Magnum revolver, in the other a tape recorder.
After brief and very awkward introductions, Adam finds an envelope in his pocket that contains a cassette tape. The tape is labeled with a small piece of paper that reads "Play Me." Doctor Gordon finds an identical envelope as well. Adam uses his over-shirt to attempt to retrieve the tape-player that is in the corpse's hand. After a few failed attempts, he uses the plug from the bathtub, in conjuction with the shirt, to retrieve it. Adam is the first to insert his tape, and as the tape starts, a very low and ominous voice gives a briefing as to why he is there. The voice tells Adam that he lives a pitiful life that involves preying upon other people (perhaps as a stalker). The tape ends with the voice telling Adam that he may be in the room that he dies in, unless he does something about it. Adam is speechless and confused. Doctor Gordon tells him to pass him the tape-player, but Adam refuses; instead, he asks Doctor Gordon to throw his tape to him. Doctor Gordon's tape starts to play, and the same insidious voice informs Doctor Gordon why he is there. Doctor Gordon apparently tells patients on a daily basis that they are going to die. The voice then tells Doctor Gordon that he now has the chance to play God, to decide over life or death. After a slight pause the tape tells Doctor Gordon that "Your aim in this game is to kill Adam." He has limited time to do so, and if he does not kill Adam, his wife and daughter will die. The camera pans to a clock on the wall, and it is apparent that this is no joke. Doctor Gordon now understands the purpose of the other item in his envelope... a bullet for the revolver held by the corpse. After much struggle and attempts to break out of the chains, (they attempt to use a key that was also in Doctor Gordon's envelope), Doctor Gordon reviews the tape. Doctor Gordon listens very carefully again, and at the end of the tape, a very faint voice can be heard saying.. " follow your heart." They are both confused by this, and start scanning the room. Doctor Gordon notices a heart that is drawn on a dirty toilet. Adam opens the lid and reaches into the water (which appears to contains feces). After finding nothing, he opens the back of the toilet to find a plastic bag containing two hacksaws. They test out the hacksaws on their chains, but they do not work. Doctor Gordon realizes what is going on. He states, "He doesn't want us to cut through our chains, he wants us to cut through our feet. "
Gordon (stunned) realizes the person behind this: Jigsaw, a deranged serial killer who puts his victims into situations where they must complete a task to escape death. Yet, not many have survived his traps. Adam isn't satisfied and demands to know how Gordon knows all of this. After a pause, Doctor Gordon tells Adam that Gordon himself was once a suspect, and the last he heard, the killer was still at large.
A group of people in a basement are then shown, where one of Jigsaw's traps are set up. A man is found dead and trapped in what seems to be a maze of razor wire. A female cop named Kerry shows Det. David Tapp (Danny Glover) and Det. Steven Sing (Ken Leung) a tape found at the scene. The scene starts to play out as the man wakes up. The tape reminds him of the time he cut himself with a razor. The man (we now know as Paul) is asked whether or not he did this for attention, or if he really wanted to kill himself. Paul's trap is now set, as he has 2 hours to escape out of a razor wire maze, or else the door to the basement he is in will be sealed forever, and he will die alone. The irony of it is, if he wants to die, he doesn't have to do anything, but if he wants to live, he'll have to cut himself again. Here is where we first hear Jigsaw's most memorable line "Live or die, make your choice." Paul fails to escape, and dies in the process.
Another victim of Jigsaw's is Mark, a man who claims to have injuries and cannot work, yet he is perfectly fine. He has a poison coursing through him, and the only antidote is in the safe in the middle of the room. The combination to that safe is painted on the walls, but it is extremely dark in the room. The only source of light is a candle. He must use the candle to get the combination off the wall, and input it into the safe. The catch is that he is smeared with a flammable substance, the floor is covered in broken glass, and that the walls are covered in numbers. The trap seems impossible, and after putting in only a few numbers, he fumbles the candle, and lights himself on fire. He burns to death, and the corpse is found at the scene of the crime where Kerry, Tapp, and Sing are present.
It is here where we find out that Jigsaw likes to watch his victims in action (there is a small eyehole in the far end of the wall). This is where Doctor Gordon comes into play; a penlight from his office, with his fingerprints, is found at the scene of Mark's death.
The scene ends and we see Doctor Gordon in front of some of his doctors, talking about a patient who has a frontal tumor, who appears to be dying from cancer. This is where Zep, the orderly, comes in and explains that the patient's name is John and is indeed a very interesting man. We see John, a man about 60 years of age, looking older from his disease. He has almost no hair, and lies sleeping in the hospital bed. Doctor Gordon is called down to his office, and he leaves. There he is confronted by Tapp and Sing, and they explain the dilemma to him. Doctor Gordon is forced to go down to the police station with them. He pleads his innocence to his lawyer, and when the lawyer asks him where he was the night in question, Doctor Gordon apparently had business elsewhere. After he is cleared, one of the arresting officers asks him to stay and listen to one of Jigsaw's victims. The victim is being questioned, and Doctor Gordon is viewing from another room. She is the only one to ever survive.
The survivor is Amanda Young. Through a series of questions, she explains her trap. After Jigsaw abducts her, he places her in a trap with a heavy metal apparatus (a reverse bear-trap) to her jaw. Jigsaw communicates with her via a talking puppet on a nearby television set. When the timer went off, Jigsaw explains, the trap would rip her jaws open (and destroy her head, if its effect on the mannequin was at all representative) if she did not find the key. The key was in the stomach of a dead man lying across the room from her. To get the key, she would have to cut into the man's stomach. Upon further realization, it is revealed that the man isn't dead, but rather heavily sedated. Amanda kills him, retrieving the key from his stomach just in time and unlocking herself just before the bear trap explodes. As Amanda reels from what she has just been through, Jigsaw's puppet appears before her, congratulating her for surviving. "Most people are so ungrateful to be alive...but not you. Not anymore."
Back in the washroom, Adam and Gordon discover that they’re being watched by a camera through a one-way mirror, and Adam finds a picture in Gordon's wallet showing Gordon’s wife and daughter being held captive. Adam doesn't show it to him, though. Meanwhile, Det. Tapp is under the impression that Gordon is Jigsaw. He remembers a few months back, when he was injured by Jigsaw and Det. Sing was killed while chasing Jigsaw down an alley (one of Jigsaw's many traps).
Gordon finds two cigarettes and a cell phone that only receives calls. At this point Gordon remembers when he was kidnapped back at the hospital parking lot. Jigsaw has instructed him to poison Adam with the cigarettes, but after an argument, Adam reveals to Gordon that his family is in mortal danger. They decide to fake Adam’s death, but that plan fails after Jigsaw gives Adam an electric shock through his chain, to ascertain if he's actually dead. At this point, Adam remembers back to when he was kidnapped by Jigsaw, in his apartment.
The cell phone rings, and Alison is forced by her captor to tell Gordon not to believe Adam’s lies. Adam reveals that he was hired by Det. Tapp to spy on Gordon, believing he is The Jigsaw Killer. Back at home, Alison is about to escape. At the same time, one of Adam’s photos reveal that Zep, Gordon’s assistant from the hospital, is the one holding his wife and daughter hostage.
The clock reaches 6:00, ending the time limit. Zep and Alison fight over a gun while Det. Tapp rushes to save her. The fight turns into a chase as Det. Tapp tries to catch Zep before he can get to the room. Believing that his wife and daughter are still in danger, Gordon finally saws off his own foot thinking that it is the only way to save his family, while Adam cries out unsuccessfully, trying to tell Dr. Gordon to stop.
Det. Tapp nearly emerges victorious, but is shot by Zep, who rushes to the washroom and leaves him to die. Free of his shackle after sawing off his foot, Gordon shoots Adam. Very soon after, Zep reaches the washroom and is tackled by Adam, who is injured but still alive and beats Zep to death with the toilet lid. After a tearful goodbye, Gordon leaves, saying he has to get help, or he'll bleed to death.
Adam, however, is still shackled to the wall. He searches Zep’s pockets for a key, but instead finds another cassette. Zep was manipulated by Jigsaw all along. He was being forced to kidnap Dr. Gordon's wife and daughter, or be killed by a poison coursing through his system.
The real Jigsaw, it turns out, was actually Dr. Gordon's patient John and has been pretending to be the “corpse” on the floor. John rises up and tells him "The key to that chain is in the bathtub." Adam suddenly looks back at the bathtub, quickly realizing the key was the glowing blue object that went down the drain when he first awoke. Adam panics, he graps Zep's gun and points it at John. John pulls out a taser and electrocutes Adam causing the gun to fly out of his hands. As Adam recovers, he looks up and sees John turn off the lights. Realizing what John is going to do, he screams frantically. “Game over,” John says as he slams the door shut, ending the film with Adam trapped in the pitch-black washroom, screaming into the credits.
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Danny Glover | Detective David Tapp |
| Cary Elwes | Dr. Lawrence Gordon |
| Leigh Whannell | Adam Faulkner |
| Monica Potter | Alison Gordon |
| Tobin Bell | Jigsaw/John |
| Ken Leung | Detective Steven Sing |
| Dina Meyer | Detective 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 |
Traps
See main article: Saw Traps
One of the main focuses of the Saw trilogy are the traps that Jigsaw creates for his victims. Made for those who don't fully appreciate their life, the traps appeal to their 'discretions' in warped and sadistic ways. Often the victim will have to perform dangerous tasks or sometimes body mutilation to escape. While the traps do have solutions to them, few have survived them. Traps that are included in Saw 1 include: The razor wire maze, The flammable gelly and candle safe trap, and the "reverse bear trap" that Amanda survived.
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. [1]
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."[2]
Audience response was positive, as Saw has both a 74% "fresh" user rating at Rotten Tomatoes, and a 7.6 score on the Internet Movie Database.[3]
Trivia
 | This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. |
- Kerry the cop (Dina Meyer) plays a much bigger role in Saw II and becomes a victim in Saw III.
- Cary Elwes and Monica Potter both had roles in the Alex Cross films Kiss The Girls and Along Came a Spider.
- Some clues implying that the dead body in the middle of the room was more than he seemed were that there were no empty bullet shells in the magnum (so he couldn't have shot himself) and that there was no cassette in the tape recorder that the man was holding (so Jigsaw couldn't have left him any messages). The gun shot exit wound is on the right side of his head, yet there is no splattered blood in the bathroom on the right side of the body, only the large pool of blood that has collected below the body, leaving no sign that he had actually been shot.
- Jigsaw is linked in many ways with the victims from the film, such as the drug addict he meets (Amanda), the doctor who informs him of his tumor (Dr. Lawrence Gordon) and the gentleman who cut his wrists is revealed to be his former colleague at the toy factory.
- Adam appears in a Saw III flashback, where Amanda kills him.
See also
| Canada:18A (British Columbia/Manitoba/Ontario) | R (Nova Scotia) (re-rating) | R (Alberta) | 16+ (Quebec) |
| Argentina: 16 | Australia: MA | Belgium : 16 | Brazil: 16 |
| Chile: 14 | Finland K-18 | France: 16 | Germany: 18/16 (edited version) |
| Greece: K-17 | Hong Kong: III | Ireland: 18 | Italy: T |
| India: A-18 | Japan: R-15 | New Zealand:R18 | Norway: 18 |
| Philippines:R-13 | Portugal: M/18 | Singapore: M18/NC-16 (edited version) | Switzerland:16 |
| Taiwan R-18 | UK: 18 BBFC | USA:NC-17 (original rating) /R (edited for re-rating) |
External links
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| Miscellaneous | |
