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For better or worse, I’m fascinated by the “Saw” movies, hypnotized by their cleverly staged murders, in which victims are locked in medieval-looking contraptions and given the choice: a) cut off a limb or stir up a eyeball or b ) face certain death from a bear-trap helmet or a metal claw ripping through their ribcage; I am endlessly amused by the soap opera-like narrative used to tie together and, in a sense, justify these sadistic games. I’ve willingly put up with it through all the horror series movies, so there’s no use beating around the bush: “Saw” is my kind of trash.
For all its silliness, “Saw the plot, so serious that it is absurd (already knowing). And unlike the various previous sequels (in the third “Saw”, any pretense of ingenuity had been eliminated), this one manages to make you feel more than just adrenaline, assuming you have affection for the mainstays of the franchise.
The first “Saw” film, released in 2004 and written by the young creative team of James Wan (who also directed) and Leigh Whannell, was an avant-garde novelty, unleashing one of the seediest trends in Hollywood horror, the called Torture Porn: An Unintentional Nod to the War on Terrorism About Abused Military Detainees.
John Kramer, also known as Jigsaw (Tobin Bell), is an avenging angel with brain cancer. He appears, like Jason or Freddie Krueger, in all editions of “Saw.” You could say that he is the beating heart of the franchise. According to his arbitrary logic (what is good and evil?), he kidnaps evildoers and puts them in his rusty traps. Those who manage to escape often get a new lease on life, and oddly enough, we root for creaky old John more than any of his would-be disciples. In “Saw X,” he refers to himself with a wink as a “life coach.”
The events of Jigsaw’s latest meat fest take place between “Saw” and “Saw 2.” John, our ailing antihero, heads to Mexico to undergo an experimental medical procedure that turns out to be a huge scam. The criminals behind the scam become the future victims of it. Director Kevin Greutert puts surprising effort into building the arc of betrayal that John suffers, heightening the stakes in ways that previous hyper-nihilistic “Saw” films never bothered to address.
Set on the outskirts of Mexico City, the film employs a jaundiced sepia filter to signal the shift into exotic territory, and although the plot involves a white man beating up Latinos, the stronger setup cushions accusations of bad-faith racism. It’s not that the film’s commentary on these issues is sophisticated; In this world of youthful emotions, we all look the same on the inside. This “Saw” avoids the boring political harassment of “Spiral,” the 2021 spinoff, which linked the moral mandate of Jigsaw’s killer to the Black Lives Matter movement.
In any case, the biggest bad guy, the ringleader of the scam, is a cold-blooded Scandinavian, Dr. Cecilia Pederson (Synnove Macody Lund), who may care less about her Spanish-speaking subordinates than about John himself.
Amanda (Shawnee Smith), the Robin to Jigsaw’s Batman, shows up to help the boss with his latest trick: kidnapping Cecilia and three of her accomplices. One by one, each victim plays their game, punctuated by John and Amanda’s heartbreaking talks, Cecilia’s ruthless scheming (one maneuver involves a rope made from a victim’s intestines), and, for the devoted, fisticuffs. inducing appearances of symbols from the extended “Saw” universe, such as a puppet reminiscent of a Michael Jackson with a shrunken head.
This is the best-kept “Saw” movie to date. Overall, the story makes sense, and Greutert resorts to the frenetic editing techniques that made older films look like the blood-and-guts equivalent of white noise. Bell’s Jigsaw is the same placid psychopath we rely on for gruesome turn-ons (and a few giggles) and he’s a little cute here too, just like fans always thought he was.
Sierra X
Rated R for graphic scenes of torture and drug abuse. Duration: 1 hour 58 minutes. On cinemas.