Directed by: David Hackl
Starring: Costas Mandylor, Tobin Bell, Scott Patterson
Plot: Following Jigsaw's grizzly demise, Mark Hoffman, the final apprentice to the serial killer is reigned a hero. Meanwhile, Agent Strahm is tested and puts the pieces together. While Strahm realizes that Hoffman is helping Jigsaw, five seemingly unconnected people face a horrible lesson of teamwork. Strahm follows all the leads he can get off Hoffman, including the death of his sister and why he joined Jigsaw. Hoffman and Strahm circle each other until it boils down to a gruesome and bone-crushing finale. Taken from www.imdb.com.
Trapped somewhere in-between the events of Saw U and Saw W is "Saw V" the fifth in a series of films that have a title with nothing to do with anything in the actual movie and a roman numeral to make them seem edgier.
Now it should be said that unlike the rest of the internet, I don't hate the "Saw" films. The sentiment on the interweb is that everyone hates these movies. (Which is why it's the most profitable series of films ever made.)
The fact is, despite the gore effects that grew increasingly gimmicky with each film, "Saw" is a pretty good series. A more apt name for the series would have been "Jigsaw", which is really what this series is. It's a big puzzle that we're slowly getting more and more pieces to and you have to admit, you never see the ending coming.
Now, with that said, "Saw III" was shit and was only good because it came out in a year where there were a remarkably small number of good horror films. Of course this series of films is like a season of "Lost", miss one episode and you'll have no fucking clue what's going on.
"Saw III" continues with the freaky Quentin Tarantino-ish timeline and we spend this movie on the same motherfucking day we've spent the last two movies, so the latest point in the series that we have seen is the beginning and ending of "Saw IV."
This time Donnie Wahlberg and that stupid doll are gone for good and even Jigsaw and the traps take a backseat for the story of Mark Hoffman, the man revealed to be Jigsaw's second apprentice in the last film. The only person who seems to have put it together that is Agent Strahm who promptly ends up in a trap of his own with his head encased in a glass box full of water.
Fortunately for Strahm, even though Hoffman took his wallet, his knife, and his gun he left a pen in his pocket which Strahm quickly gives himself a tracheotomy with. So Strahm, Hoffman, and a little girl are the only survivors of the "Saw III/IV" clusterfuck.
Well now we have the cat and mouse game between Strahm and Hoffman which is more akin to a psychological thriller than most Saw movies, but don't worry you knuckledragging mouthbreathers, we have a parellel story of 5 strangers in a series of traps ala "Saw 2" to feed your love of gore.
Tobin Bell is back as usual, but sans being a corpse, he doesn't appear in anyhting other than flashbacks that go back to before and around the time of the first "Saw." Tobin is as usual strangely likeable while still being creepy but I applaud the director for having taken focus off the character that's been dead for the last 2 movies.
This leaves us with Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) who is honestly has much better screen presence than even Tobin Bell. He has very intense eyes and conveys a sort of angry apathy in every moment he's on screen. I'm not sure how many more roman numerals we're in for but if Mandylor is playing the villain I'm all for it.
The 5 people in the traps are superfluous and so are their performances. None are badly acted, but none are well acted either.
Finally somebody turned the gore down a notch in a "Saw" film. It's not as dissappointing as in the first one but it's not overdone and stupid like in 3 either. There are a couple scenes, particularly the opening where they're trying to appeal to the sick fucks in the audience but they're a bit more subtle than usual which is a much welcome change.
The traps are still inventive (even if the first one in the movie is stolen from an Edgar Allen Poe story) and seem more like deadly games than torture devices. In fact, people actually do survive in this movie as opposed to the usual.
The story is finally taking a change for the better now that Jigsaw, Marky Mark, Darren Lynn Boseman, Amanda, and that creepy fucking doll are out of the picture. Hoffman seems to be an even better maniac than Jigsaw ever was and I like the more thrillerish angles the storyline is taking as well.
Of course, my favorite thing is the big surprise at the end. The big surprise is that there is no surprise! Oh sure the music still plays and we see a montage of scenes but this time the twist is something that a blind, deaf, orangutan with down's syndrome could've picked up on.
This literally is the best movie since the first one. I've heard a lot of people say it's "just for the fans." But no, the fans hate it, it's only for the fans because anybody else who hasn't been watching this series religiously is going to be confused as shit. (To be honest I need to get in the habit of watching the previous movie prior to seeing the new on in theater as I'm having trouble keeping track of everything.)
In fact the only real thing wrong with this movie is how it tries to please the die hard fans as well as everyone else. The side story with the five people in the trap is great and all but it LITERALLY has absolutely nothing to do with the plot. Of course there's a possibility (and in fact a large probablity) that the significance of that lot will be explained in the next film.
This movie does a nice job of filling in some pieces of the puzzle while giving us others to look for. It's a lot more intelligent than the previous 3 movies and really looks to be heading in the right direction. Darren Lynn Boseman pissing off was seriously the best thing that ever happened to these movies.
I give "Saw V" a 4 out of 5. It's a good movie and would maybe be a definite buy if it would just quit its whoring ways.
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