Saw

This horror thriller, about a mysterious killer who tortures his victims with elaborate traps that they must quickly escape or die, will repel many viewers with its gleefully misogynist attitude, ghoulish sense of humor, and abundant gore (of course, Saw has already attracted a cult following for those very same reasons). A very intricately constructed shocker that plays like a bargain-basement version of Se7en, the film--which combines a puzzle-like format with a grim police procedural--opens in a filthy underground lavatory, where two men (a doctor and a slacker photographer) awaken to find themselves chained at opposite ends of the room, with a corpse lying between them in a pool of blood, clutching a gun. A tape recording orders the doctor to kill the younger man or else the villain will off his wife and daughter, whom he's taken captive (the title refers to the implement that will allow the doc to remove his own foot in order to retrieve the revolver). From here the picture dribbles out information in often misleading spurts, moving back in time to follow a police search for a killer called Jigsaw, while strewing about all sorts of twists and red herrings, together with plenty of “gotcha” moments and bursts of stomach-churning violence. By most objective standards, the film is pretty awful, but Saw nevertheless does what it sets out to do: serve up a crude but effective exercise in cinematic manipulation. An optional purchase. [Note: Available in either a widescreen or full screen version, DVD extras include audio commentary by writer-costar Leigh Whannell and writer-director James Wan, the two-minute “Sawed Off: Inside Sneak Peek” making-of featurette, both the rated and unrated versions (about a minute and a half difference) of Fear Factory's music video “Bite the Hand That Bleeds You,” a five-minute featurette on the making of the unrated video, a three-minute poster art montage, trailers, and TV spots. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a gory but uneven film.] (F. Swietek)