Saw

This tight little million dollar picture is what I call a ‘single-idea’ movie. A couple of guys get an idea and then can persevere enough to make a movie around it. Such films are usually intriguing as the high profile idea feeds the ambition of the contributors and amuses the viewers but often everything that is thought after to weave the idea into a full-length feature film often does not live up to expectation or the quality of that one idea.

‘Saw’ is a film often almost on those lines. Saw has its flaws and inconsistencies just like all ‘single-idea’ films generally do but it does succeed in presenting a very interesting moral and ethical dilemma and make you think how you would react if you were ever to find yourself in such a situation.

Two guys wake up in a dingy decrepit bathroom and find themselves chained to pipes on opposite ends. Their captor communicates to them their escape route and the rest of the film tries to resolve this issue. In order to escape they will have to decide between death and some harsh crazy physically impossible and morally repugnant choices.

Young James Wan from Australia directs this film well however he is often seduced by melodrama and sacrifices sense for style in ways not completely forgivable. Leigh Whannell, who co-wrote the story with the director and also plays one of the main characters isn’t the best of actors but manages to help the neurotic ambience.

Considering it took about a million dollars to make it, this ‘Saw’ has quite an edge.