lawstua

For a film that supposedly spawned the entire 'torture-porn' sub-genre, 'SAW' turns out to be surprisingly conventional and lacking in gore . After an ingenious set-up, the plot quickly unravels into a mess of implausible plot twists and horror clichés. Any horror film that shows heroes that are too stupid to put away the bad guy when they have him cornered, or bad guys that just get up like nothing happened after being shot, or serial killers that are permitted to operate in a vacuum with no effort by the city authorities at a man-hunt, runs the risk in this post Scream world of being viewed as a mere rehash rather than a reinvention of the genre.

Great concept but not very well made. The acting of the male lead is wooden, he seems mute throughout the film, as does the 'robot girl', who isn't particularly attractive (wouldn't a female robot girl be 'perfect'?). Content-wise there's nothing really going on, despite the film's self-important tone. There's nothing really to challenge the viewer, and there's no sex. This filmmaker's idea of daring cinema is to have a 'Benny Hill' moment of the male lead peeking up his robot girlfriend's dress. Understated and sombre is OK, but this film doesn't seem to tackle anything interesting. Neither is it particularly well made: the acting, the writing, the sets, the special effects, nothing in this film is convincing.