Saw V (2008) Review

Time: 92 minutes
Age Rating: Torture & Sadistic Violence
Cast:
Tobin Bell as John Kramer
Costas Mandylor as Detective Mark Hoffman
Scott Patterson as Agent Peter Strahm
Betsy Russell as Jill Tuck
Julie Benz as Brit
Meagan Good as Luba Gibbs
Mark Rolston as Agent Dan Erickson
Carlo Rota as Charles
Director: David Hackl

Although Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) and Amanda (Shawnee Smith) are dead, the game still lures five unassuming victims. In the guise of a survival of the fittest routine, the contestants begin their journey towards a deadly end.

After Saw IV, it seems like the Saw series just seems to be going down this path of every instalment being subsequently worse. However, for some odd reason I’m interested to actually watch all of them, even if most of them aren’t exactly good. I was hoping that Saw V would improve from the last instalment, especially with how messy that one was. Unfortunately, that’s not the case, in fact I’d actually say it’s a bit worse. Not the step down that III was from II or IV was from III, but I’m less favourable towards V, even if I enjoy parts of it.

Saw IV was quite complicated with its storylines. This time it’s a little less complicated with Saw V, consisting with a new game with the new victims, Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) as the new Jigsaw, and FBI Agent Strahm’s (Scott Patterson) investigation into Hoffman. With that said, the plot is also rather forgettable and dull, the most forgettable of the movies so far. Something that you’ll be able to tell early on is that this movie is first and foremost dedicated to lore, the plot is secondary, and there’s a lot of focus on backstory with a lot of exposition. John Kramer/Jigsaw does make some appearances in flashbacks given that he’s dead, but unlike Saw IV there isn’t a whole storyline dedicated to him alone. On one hand, the idea of less Jigsaw in this movie wasn’t exactly exciting, as Tobin Bell (actor for Jigsaw) and Charlie Clouser’s scores are really the only consistently good things across all of these movies. At this point though, the series has to try something else and not be held back by him, so I do respect it trying to move on, while giving a bit of Jigsaw. Of the main storylines, I’ll start with the one focusing on the group of people stuck in the traps, probably because there’s not much to really say about that one. The theme of the traps involves people having to work together to survive, I do like that idea and it’s quite an interesting one for this series to have. There’s also social commentary on real estate people, and there’s decent enough conflict with the victims fighting for survival, including fighting themselves. Unfortunately, the execution is quite weak compared to Jigsaw’s other games, from the mediocre and unlikable characters, to how its not even the main focus of the movie. By the end of the movie, the trap plot becomes something of a subplot. As I said, Saw V is more about the lore and backstory than the plot, and the former is more what the other two storylines are about.

The cliffhanger of Saw IV revealed Hoffman as the secret Jigsaw apprentice teased throughout that movie. Now that John Kramer is dead, this leaves Hoffman as his successor, and his storyline is about that. A large portion of the scenes consist flashbacks, where it goes back to times of the past Saw movies and shows how Hoffman was involved in some past iconic moments and traps. Saw III showed Amanda and how she was involved with some of the events of the past Saw movies, but at least those were shown in a few scenes or brief montages. With Hoffman in Saw V however, there are extensive scenes showing them. These are the only moments where it can get convoluted, when it goes back to the past Saw movies and especially with the interconnectivity. Some of it can get tedious, but I did like the connections. The third storyline is that of Strahm from the last movie, as he’s investigating Hoffman as he suspects him as being an accomplice to Jigsaw. There is a problem however that takes away from what could’ve been an interesting storyline, we already know the truth of Hoffman’s link to Jigsaw. Now Strahm isn’t dumb, he is smart for figuring out everything all by himself. However you do wonder what the point of it is when we mostly know everything already, and it’s not really gripping. It’s also particularly dull, Strahm looks at pieces of information and speaks exposition out loud for the audience. Ultimately you realise at a certain point that the Strahm storyline with him figuring out Hoffman is just to serve the latter’s backstory, as we learn about him. I think ultimately how well this movie works for you depends on how interested you are in Hoffman as a character. As it was, I found him okay, but he really doesn’t do enough in this movie to make me particularly engaged in him or interested with the idea of him being the new Jigsaw. There are plenty of twists as to be expected, but they aren’t great or unexpected like a lot of the other movies. The ending has one of those big Saw endings with the music and the reveals, it’s enjoyable as always but is a bit goofy and doesn’t hit as hard as much as the first three. Saw V is about 90 minutes long and while it wasn’t tough to get through, it was a bit of a slog, especially in contrast with the other movies, even the fourth.

The acting from the main cast is good, the rest is a mixed bag. I guess one could call the main character Peter Strahm, played by Scott Patterson. On one hand there’s parts of the character I like. He is one of the smarter main characters of the Saw series, in one of his earliest scenes he escapes a trap that was meant to kill him. Not only that, but he manages to figure out Hoffman and Jigsaw all by himself. With that said, him being smart does make some of his later dumb decisions frustrating. Additionally, Strahm doesn’t do much beyond move from place to place to deliver exposition, we don’t actually get to learn much about him, and he’s not developed as a character. Costas Mandylor plays Mark Hoffman, the secret apprentice to Jigsaw. He does appear broody and menacing and I guess he plays his part. Again though, Hoffman hasn’t done much to make himself interesting enough as a character. As I said earlier, Tobin Bell still gets to play some role here in flashbacks as Jigsaw, mainly to do with Hoffman. As usual he’s great and his screen presence is strong as always, even in the numerous scenes where they are just showing behind the scenes of past traps, Bell still does very well in his part. There’s an extensive scene where these two major characters meet for the first time, and it’s one of the best scenes in the movie. The characters outside of those three are typical horror movie characters, they weren’t interesting, they are hard to like, and their acting aren’t good. It’s worse when none of them are really a main character in this story. Even with Saw II, the game had at least the son of the main character and Amanda. None of the characters in the traps of Saw V has an impact on the rest of the overall plot, it didn’t feel like it mattered if they lived or died.

After three Saw sequels with Darren Lynn Bousman, there’s a new director for this 5th instalment. This new director is David Hackl, who served as on production design in the Saw sequels. It was an opportunity to add a fresh directing voice to the Saw series. The direction is solid enough, but isn’t special or anything. Oddly enough, a great aspect in the movie is the editing. Gone are the quick firing and flashy cuts from the Darren movies, it’s a lot more refined and clean. At the same time, its got the right amount of intensity. As to be expected from Saw movies, there are traps and gore. Unfortunately the traps aren’t that special. The opening pendulum, the water cube, and the ending trap are the only memorable ones really, even the traps from Saw IV generally stood out to me more. One of the most surprising parts of Saw V is that for the most part there are less actual gore, especially compared to III and IV. It doesn’t necessarily make it better or worse, just an interesting thing to see. Charlie Clouser’s score as usual fits perfectly with the movies, especially with the tense moments and reveals.

Saw V is yet another mixed bag of a movie from this series. Now I still do like this movie, in the same way I liked IV despite everything about it. I only think it’s slightly worse than IV because it actually feels dull in parts and less memorable, it’s the least memorable of the 5 movies so far. This is probably the first point in the series where we have a Saw movie that really didn’t need to exist. Just watch Saw V if you watched IV and were still willing to watch more. I do feel like that’s the general feeling for the whole series, if you haven’t been alienated or given up by this point, watch the next movie. There’s 3 movies left in the series to get through, and at the moment the only one of them I’m at least hopefully for is VI.

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Saw IV (2007) Review

Time: 92 minutes
Age Rating: Contains Sadistic Violence
Cast:
Tobin Bell as John Kramer
Costas Mandylor as Detective Mark Hoffman
Scott Patterson as Agent Peter Strahm
Betsy Russell as Jill Tuck
Lyriq Bent as Officer Daniel Rigg
Director: Darren Lynn Bousman

While FBI agents Strahm (Scott Patterson) and Perez (Athena Karkanis) are still engulfed in the grisly Jigsaw case, SWAT Commander Rigg (Lyriq Bent) is roped in as the last pawn for yet another lethal game of the manic Jigsaw (Tobin Bell).

While I was somewhat curious about the Saw sequels, I also had the feeling that they wouldn’t be all that good. The first two movies in the series were good, but Saw III was a step down for me. So going into Saw IV, I didn’t have high expectations and I guess that at least helped me prepare for it. The easiest description I can give for IV is that it’s just another Saw movie. Some of the entertaining elements are back, but its familiar faults are also back, and additionally it doesn’t really do much differently.

Saw IV falls back on familiar tropes in the series, with flashbacks, traps, random new characters, twists, tape recordings, fast cuts, and a needlessly intricate plot. The movie starts off pretty well. Spoiler warning for Saw III if you haven’t seen it already, but it opens with the autopsy of John Kramer AKA Jigsaw to confirm that he is in fact dead and didn’t survive through some twist. There’s a lot happening in this movie, there’s like four plots happening all at once. Unfortunately it doesn’t really spend enough time with any of them so they feel all generally feel underdeveloped. Additionally. Saw IV tries to serve as a sort of prequel to some of the previous Saw movies, while setting up sequels for a post John Kramer Jigsaw world. While I wouldn’t say that I was bored during the movie, most of the plot is uninteresting and leaps from scene to scene quickly. On one hand, it being fast paced means that doesn’t really drag, but it also makes it messy, especially as a lot of the time there is an overload of information thrown at the audience. The narrative on the whole is very messy. The story was unnecessarily intertwined and it is very convoluted, which is to be expected from the Saw movies at this point. However it is getting to the point where it’s becoming confusing.

The main plotline in Saw IV is about a police officer moving from trap to trap as he tries to save some people, similar to Saw III except the character isn’t locked in a basement and is free to give up at any time. This feels like familiar territory, and it is, and it doesn’t do really anything new with it. Pair that with an unengaging main character, and that plotline isn’t that good. Another plotline is a procedural crime drama with two FBI agents investigating the killings from Jigsaw. This was fine but not particularly tense or interesting either. As said earlier, John Kramer is now dead, so we have him appear in multiple flashbacks in this movie. These various extensive flashbacks detail more of Jigsaw’s backstory, largely through a character named Jill who’s being interrogated by the FBI. Now the Saw series is no stranger to flashbacks, but Saw IV takes it to another level and becomes very reliant on them, to the point where there is no balance between the past and the present events. To be fair I actually did like these scenes, and there’s so many of them that you almost wish the movie was just a full on prequel for Jigsaw. On top of that, the rest of the movie is Saw is on autopilot, so it was really the only interesting part. The characters on the whole were dull and not that interesting, and this movie introduces so many new random characters. With Saw III they also really started connecting all the movies’ plots tightly together. While some of the connections were interesting, this Saw timeline is so confused and bizarre at this point that you’re quite lost by the end. Twists are a staple in the Saw movies, but the twists aren’t that convincing this time around and don’t really work. At the end there’s one of those signature Saw plot twists and reveals but it doesn’t feel satisfying or deserved, not to mention it wasn’t exactly unpredictable. It just sort of sets up Saw V. The runtime is 90 minutes long, which I guess is at least better than making it 2 hours long like Saw III was. However as a result it means that in this time they have to cover over 3 plotlines, and as you can probably tell the outcome isn’t so great.

As usual Tobin Bell’s performance as John Kramer/Jigsaw does keep things together somewhat. As usual he’s a captivating screen presence and manages to sell even the most ludicrous of writing, and steals every scene he’s in. Unfortunately, much of the other characters and acting aren’t so good. The main character Rigg is played by Liriq Bent, he was a supporting cop character from Saw II. He’s a rather boring character, given little to do here except go from trap to trap. While he was a little more likable than Jeff from Saw III, at least he had a character or personality, I barely remember who Rigg was by the end of IV. On another note, you can see why some of the main characters in the other Saw movies are being tested, not really for this character. The reason why he seems to be tested is that Rigg busts down doors and tries to rescue people and they end up dying anyway (or something along those lines). It just seems like a rather contrived reason to have someone who was in one of the past Saw movies be the protagonist. Not to mention that Jigsaw’s ‘philosophy’ and ‘moral code’ already seemed shaky at the best of times and this case doesn’t help matters much. The movie also introduces some new characters with potential, including Scott Patterson as an FBI agent and Betsy Russell as someone who knew John Kramer personally, unfortunately they are very underdeveloped and not much happens with them, so again Jigsaw remains the only good character in this movie.

Saw II and Saw III director Darren Lynn Bousman returns to make this movie, and while I liked his work on those past movies, I’m not sure he was the best choice to helm a movie that’s trying to transition away from the John Kramer Jigsaw movies. There’s an effort made to keep the feel and look of the previous movies, and a lot of what you’d expect to be here makes a return. The cinematography oddly looks a little smoother and cleaner than Saw III, though as a result it makes the movie look a bit flat. Saw IV has many trap set pieces, no surprises there. However they are devoid of tension or horror compared to what came before in the past movies. I guess part of it is that instead of the traps mainly being there to teach someone a lesson, they are there to serve up another gory demise to someone who has no chance of surviving. In a lot of those cases, these people clearly won’t escape, and for the most part you won’t care if they do or not. That’s not even to mention that even the traps themselves are rather lacklasture and devoid of imagination. By Saw III it got to the point where the movies were starting to have gore for the sake of gore, but at least there was some level of impact that came from watching them. Saw IV’s traps aren’t as disgusting and horrible to watch, even if there’s still quite a bit of gore. I don’t think it’s just me being desensitised because I remember finding some of Saw III’s traps hard to watch. As for the whole ‘is Saw torture porn’ question, IV is closer to being that than the third movie, because much of the movie feels like a conveyor belt taking you from one trap to the next and just throwing obligatory gore on screen without having any sort of impact on you. Disappointing traps aside, the practical effects on the gore are still great. The highlight for me was the opening scene when an autopsy is performed on John Kramer and while I’m not expert on it, it really did look like an autopsy. As usual there’s some fast paced editing, and most of it can be quite annoying and bad, mostly very fast during tense scenes, especially during traps. With that said, there’s one moment when an interrogation scene is happening and it’s getting more tense, the editing just acts crazy for some reason. Additionally, the use of slow motion especially for big reveals were a bit silly. An odd editing choice this time around are the transitions between some scenes, either involving time periods or locations. A character might walk into a room or camera might pan a certain way, and then it smoothly cuts to a different scene. While practical and well done, these are very jarring. Charlie Clouser’s score is one of the only consistently good things across all these movies alongside from Tobin Bell, it still adds a lot and is satisfying especially during the tense moments and the ending.

Saw IV is yet another mixed bag of a Saw movie that gets worse the more I actually think about it. I liked Tobin Bell, the score, and the plotline with John Kramer’s past, but everything else felt flat. I actually do consider it to be worse than Saw III because it recycles stuff that has been done before, and more often than not was done better back then. If you liked Saw III and you’re up for more movies, then it might be worth checking out IV at least. Overall though, it just felt like more Saw for people who like Saw. While I didn’t dislike the movie, I hope it’s not just a series where each sequel is just a worse version of the last movie.