Review: Saw V (2008)

[Scott Mendelson]

Saw V
2008
089 minutes
rated R (sequences of grisly bloody violence and torture, language and
brief nudity)

by Scott Mendelson

What we see right off the bat in Saw V is a series trying to regain
its footing by pulling back.  After the completely absurd Saw IV, they
have nowhere to go but a little more down to earth.  This is easily
the smallest-scale of the sequels, and it has the feeling of a
massively scaled down budget.  That does creates a problem as many
scenes are simply a couple characters walking through a hallway, or
one character sneaking into a building.  It's not a good film, and it
almost has a whiff of 'direct-to-DVD' to it, but I did appreciate the
buttoned-down tone and it's an overall improvement from Saw IV.

There will be no plot synopsis, other than to say that the film again
picks up right at the end of the previous film, and that the surviving
characters all return.  First of all, I can't imagine anyone deciding
to see a Saw picture based on the story.  The fans are either already
invested in the long-running John Kramer mythology, or they don't care
a whit about plot.  Second, one thing I have appreciated about the
series is that, because of the complete lack of preview screenings,
and the spoiler-free marketing campaigns, the Saw films are among the
few major movies that I can go into relatively blind.  I'll give you
the same courtesy.

>From the very start, the opening trap has a logic and near-
plausibility that has eluded this film since the end of part II.  The
violence and gore-level has been severely dialed down, with less total
violence and gore than any Saw film since the original.  There is
certainly nothing to match the hideous body-piercing curtain-raiser of
Saw III, or the scalping device in Saw IV.  The traps are far less
elaborate, and far less painful.  Similar to part II, the deaths are
quick and brutal, rather than drawn out and excruciating.  One almost
wonders if the filmmakers were annoyed at the series being called
'torture porn' simply because it contained gruesome violence.

The problem with the film is the problem that has plagued the series
since the get-go.  First of all, the Jigsaw philosophy of 'I don't
kill people because I put them into positions to kill themselves' has
always been abhorrent and naive.  I always appreciated the second film
as the lone picture to actively call out the foolishness of this
thinking.  Yes, John is confronted by failure in Saw III, but he
continues to rant and rave about 'helping people cherish life' in the
next two sequels as well, and on some level we're supposed to be
intrigued by his ideas.

Second of all, the Saw sequels have had an obsession with going back
to previous entries and showing us a 'behind the scenes' view of the
previous traps and plot developments.  A solid third of the picture is
made up of flashbacks (both new footage and old) to previous scenes
from the previous films (even Danny Glover appears in old footage..
you can guess which actor does not).  I can't speak to everyone who is
a fan of this series, but I couldn't care less about seeing how John
Kramer set up that gun-rigged to the door gag from Saw II.  Of course,
without those pointless scenes, there is now no way to bring Tobin
Bell into the story, so the filmmakers are in a bit of a bind.  Good
acting versus story progression.

The biggest problem, most apparent in the third film, is the idea that
John Kramer wants to teach his victims a grand moral.  Fair enough,
but if John succeeds in that, then the audience doesn't get to see
what it came for - ghoulish traps successfully ensnaring their
victims.  Conversely, if the audience is invested in the character
arcs of the victims, such as Saw III's genuinely compelling story of
Angus Macfadyen learning to forgive the people who played a hand in
his son's death, we don't root for the traps.   We sit there in
disappointment as MacFadyen's Jeff fails again and again in making the
right moral choice in time to save those in peril.

Maybe the filmmakers realized this, because the last two films have
severely dialed down the seriousness of the moral flaw.  The last film
hilariously was about punishing a cop who cared too much, who saw the
good in people too easily (don't want THAT in a cop, do we?).  This
one is more or less about not trusting your instincts.  So, in five
films, we've gone to teaching junkies and murderers to appreciate
their lives to going after cops who care too much and follow their
instincts.  I predict in Saw VI that Jigsaw will be punishing people
for titling pinball machines, loving their children too much, and
driving in the carpool lane with unaccompanied.

Point being, if you've followed the series this far, you are already
aware of these issues and don't care.  Me, I just go for Tobin Bell
and because it's a quasi-anniversary tradition celebrating the first
date with my eventual wife (we met on 10/28/05 and our first date was
Saw II - her choice).  While far less grand, the film is a better
picture than Saw IV.  And although it's far less ambitious, it's
better written and acted than the overwrought and absurd Saw I.  It's
not nearly as good as Saw II or Saw III, but it's a step back from the
abyss.  It combines the teamwork aspect of Saw I, with the group of
people trapped in a house bit from Saw II.  Like Saw II, the scenes of
group imperilment are more about funhouse horror traps than prolonged
misery and suffering.

I'm not sure where the Saw franchise can go from here (although a
major plot point is left deliberately unresolved), but as long as
Tobin Bell is getting his annual acting showcase, then I'll be happy
to support the grizzled character actor who ruined the ending of Saw
1, since I recognized him as the cancer patient and did the math.
Although casting Michael Emerson (who had just won an Emmy for
portraying a serial killer on The Practice) as the assistant didn't
help either.

Grades for all Saw pictures:

Saw: C-
Saw II: B
Saw III: B
Saw IV: D
Saw V: C