Saw VI
I've been thinking about movies I like that have less-than-stellar reputations, and I think I'm gonna make those my focus this week. Normally I don't have any overarching themes, but I feel like trying something a little different and I've got a long, difficult week ahead of me work-wise so it seemed like a good idea to stick to movies I already know I like. So with that in mind, let's check in on a late chapter in a series that often gets dismissed as "torture porn," a meaningless pejorative invented by people who usually can't be bothered to actually watch the movies they bash.
The first time I watched Saw I didn't much care for it. I thought it was a silly, oppressively bleak movie that hinged on too-flashy camera work (there are still a few shots I really can't stand), a somewhat nonsensical twist and a pretty terrible Cary Elwes performance. A month or so before Saw IV came out my friend Fabian convinced me to give the first movie another shot and try out the sequels. I did, and I'm glad he pushed me to try again because a funny thing happened with the sequels: I became totally hooked on the ever-twisting soap opera that is the Saw series. This series has a commitment to continuity that is completely unlike any other series I've seen in any genre. That constant re-framing of what's come before fascinates me, and I love that it's not a series that you can jump into at any point. You could watch any Elm Street or Friday the 13th movie and have a pretty decent idea of what's going on, but there's no way you could jump into any given Saw movie (even with a generous "previously on Saw..."-style recap) and have the first clue what the hell is going on. I love that, I love that the series rewards you for paying attention. I also love that my very favorite entry came so late in the series.
Saw VI should not have worked. Jigsaw, the villain of the series played by the great Tobin Bell, has been dead since the climax of Saw III (brief side note: another thing I love about the series is that they don't pull any dopey "he didn't really die" tricks to keep Bell on screen, Saw IV opens with his autopsy in vivid detail...that dude is stone cold dead) but thanks to the fluidity of the timeline in these movies he still gets to participate in the proceedings through flashbacks. The "hero" of the movie (Peter Outerbridge) isn't a hero at all, he's a scumbag insurance company flack who spends his career figuring out new ways to not pay for medical procedures. He's forced to decide who to save and who to allow to die in a series of deadly traps, and there's real tension in the setpieces that place life-or-death scenarios directly in his hands. As all this is going on, we're also still following Jigsaw's protégé Hoffman (Costas Mandylor), having escaped almost-certain death at the end of Saw V (in an ending seemingly cribbed from Superman II, of all places) and working to carry on Jigsaw's legacy for himself.
So yeah, there's a ton of stuff going on in this movie, but surprisingly it never gets overwhelmed by trying to service all the different threads. The Saw movies are notorious for their use of flashbacks, and I'm a big fan of how they truly make you rethink what's come before (plus, whatever it takes to give Tobin Bell more screen time is fine by me). The narrative is constantly zigging and zagging in unexpected directions, and this chapter even has something to say about the current state of American health care. That's a pretty lofty ambition for the fifth sequel to what is essentially a grimy midnight movie, but here we are. No movie with a "VI" after the title should be as good as this one is. Unfortunately the follow-up, Saw 3D, took that sentiment to heart and ended the series on a very lackluster note. At least we'll always have Saw VI (and Tobin Bell's awesome pronunciation of the word "piranha." Seriously, listen for it, it's great).
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