Jigsaw Pieced Together
It's been a long time since I put myself through the torture of watching "Saw V" a terrible episode in the horror series, probably the reason why I left it so long to watch "Saw VI". Now that is a bit of a mistake as "Saw VI" wraps up various elements left hanging from previous movies, the mystery of the box which Jigsaw's wife received following his death and what happened to Agent Perez. As such if you haven't watched the previous "Saw" movies in a while and find yourself watching "Saw VI" for the first time give yourself a refresher as it will help. But what we also get is Hoffman carrying out Jigsaw's final instructions which sees the CEO of a dodgy insurance company getting his comeuppance for cheating clients out of their money, which other than a bit of a twist and an open end does little to make "Saw VI" feel that much different to what we have seen before.
With Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) now gone and Agent Strahm (Scott Patterson) dead Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) is left to carry on Jigsaw's work under his own steam, all he has to do is carry out his mentor's final instructions which were handed to his wife Jill (Betsy Russell) in a box by his attorney. Jigsaw's final wishes sees William (Peter Outerbridge), the corrupt CEO of an insurance company who cheats clients out of money including Jigsaw, captured and forced to run the gauntlet of sadistic games to see if he can be taught a lesson. But is William the only one going to be taught a lesson?
In typical fashion "Saw VI" opens up with some torture porn as we see two people in a trap where they have to cut off the most flesh from their body to survive. Why them? Well it may have explained but in truth these two victims don't have any importance other than to be the opening victims. What follows that is two things which interweave, the loose ends left from the previous movies tied up whilst we see a victim having to run a series of bloody games. Now in fairness this is an improvement on what was the mindless gore of previous episodes but it did little to really grab my attention.
It was only during the final 10 minutes where it finally grabbed me because this is where we finally get some twists on what up until then had been rather a mundane episode. And typically whilst for a time there were rumours that "Saw VI" was to be the final episode it left things open for that one more episode which we inevitably got.
Now here is the sad truth about the "Saw" movies is that what actually happened in the story ended up being unimportant, yes the mystery of the box was intriguing but other than that it had got so far fetched that you stopped caring who is doing what to who. What you did care about was the ingenuity, how smart it came across, how clever the games were and how sudden surprises took you aback. Unfortunately the cleverness is again lacking and whilst there is more ingenuity to the games than in previous movies they fail to really grab you. The good news is that at least this time we learn a bit about those who are in the firing line, quite literally in one of the games, so whilst we still have gore it is gore with reason rather than to pander to those who lust it.
And that is about it because you certainly don't watch these movies for great acting and frankly Costas Mandylor plods through the movie looking as though he hopes it is over as much as we do. Oh Betsy Russell is a pleasant distraction as Jill as is Samantha Lemole as reporter Samantha but these are not great characters or great performances.
What this all boils down to is that "Saw VI" is thankfully an improvement on "Saw V" but it is far off being as clever or as entertaining as those first couple of movies. But at least some of the mysteries get cleared up even if they are not that interesting.
