SAW (2004) The latest victim of Shitty Ending Syndrome Here's a movie with an irresistably hooky premise, that goes for most of its length exploiting it well, but starts to falter halfway through and goes to complete shit with about twenty minutes to go. What happened? How did the screenwriters (Leigh Whannel and director James Wan) arrive at one cliché after another to conclude a movie that until then was gripping, visceral, gruesome fun? I couldn't tell you. With a budget of less than two megabucks, Saw doesn't seem like the kind of movie that comes under a lot of studio pressure to please as many people as possible, but in the end it relies on an all-too-familiar stable of crowd-pleasing tricks to wrap itself up. Two men wake up in a big, nasty, dilapidated bathroom, chained at the ankle on opposite sides of the room to big pipes, and they're slow to remember how they got there. There's an apparent suicider sprawled out and bloody between the two and out of reach of either, and they find a series of clues and hints left by their captor to help them proceed, if not quite escape. The two men are Cary Elwes as an oncologist, and Whannel (I just knew this guy had to be the screenwriter) as a twentysomething slacker. One of them knows quite a bit about the other, but despite the obvious peril of the situation fails to mention it until about halfway through the movie. One of them also knows quite a bit about their captor - known as the Jigsaw Killer, this guy specializes in putting his victims in situations where they kill themselves (or others) in frantic attempts to save their own lives. It is through his recollections that much of the backstory unfolds: flashbacks within flashbacks, flashbacks to events this guy wasn't even witness to. They disrupt the panicky claustrophobia of the bathroom (this could've made for a pretty cool stage play) and you might ask yourself - what's with the guy in the drill-chair? But the story being told is simple enough, and it's easy to follow despite the awkward structure. We bear witness to the ordeals of three (well, four really) of the Jigsaw Killer's previous victims, who have nothing to do with anything beyond demonstrating that the Jigsaw Killer is an awful awful man, with a keen eye for ironic punishment. These are the fucked-up survival games promised in the ads; they're the big hook for the movie, and it's for the best that they're moved on from after the first half hour or so since they look too much like a Nine Inch Nails video, but they are sticky fun while they last. Through these flashbacks we meet a cop (Danny Glover) who suspects Elwes is really the killer, and is still suspecting. All good so far. The bathroom set - and much of the movie depends on this - is a great little piece of nasty. The "big dilapidated bathroom" is an old horror movie standard but this one lives up to it nicely. Despite the casting of (let's not kid ourselves) bad actors like Elwes and Monica Potter (and largely untested ones like Whannel), the cast is for the most part convincing though I couldn't quite buy the sudden desperation of that climactic decision, which seems to carry no consequence. Potentially cheesy devices like the villain speaking through a variant of a ventriloquist's dummy are pulled off with some skill. For most of the movie's length, I was rapt; I really wanted to see how these two men were going to get past six o'clock. Saw is a surprisingly difficult movie to spoil, so forgive me if I seem a little looser with the spoilers than usual. But those last twenty minutes feature the following: bound captives wriggling their way out of their supposedly secure bonds, a long-telegraphed devastating decision intercut with a chase scene and grappling match where a rank amateur outruns and outfights a skilled and experienced professional, and of course a Big Reveal that's supposed to blow your mind. My mind was thinking, oh come on, on a few levels. Since both the false villain and the real villain are such insignificant characters otherwise, what's the point in hiding the killer's identity at all? How does the killer maintain his...deception? Why did the villain - who apparently inflicts such suffering only on people he deems worthy of it - save his (arguably) most cruel torment for the only person in this entire movie who treats him with some respect? Man, I've seen some movies bone themselves at the end but few that had me before like this one did. I know that a movie like this depends on a willingness to suspend disbelief - a willingness to believe that an insane villain would and could put his victims through elaborate puzzles and challenges to torment them when something as simple and satisfying as electrical shock is an available option too. I was willing, I was eager! I was on board until those last twenty minutes, which seemed tailored for the people who just can't wait for a Scream 4. I've read a lot of hype about how the original cut of this movie was so nasty that it had to be trimmed to avoid an NC-17, as if that hasn't been the case with every R-rated movie for fifteen years. Saw could already be considered a giant hit before a single ticket was purchased; getting a wide theatrical release with a budget like that guaranteed it, which in turn guaranteed a sequel (even House Of The Dead is getting a sequel). So a Saw 2 is due in theatres in record time...actually I think it came out before Saw did. 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