Saw III

Saw III was the first sequel to have been planned in the writing of the previous movie. It picks up immediately where the Saw II left off. Detective Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) is still shackled in the bathroom from the first film, and has to crush his own foot to escape from the chains.

We’re then given our opening trap in flashback, as the police investigate it. This sets up a mystery for the movie: someone is making inescapable traps, completely contrary to Jigsaw’s philosophy. It’s a point that seems forgotten for most of the movie, only becoming significant at the end. A nice little Chekov's Gun.

In Saw II the narrative was driven by two games, but the point of only one was made entirely clear from the beginning. For III there are two games, with far more obvious purposes. A man named Jeff (Angus Macfadyen), whose son died in a tragic car accident, is put through a series of traps in which he must decide whether or not to save the people he blames for his suffering. First, a witness who ran and failed to testify (Debra Lynne McCabe), then the judge who let the driver off with a light sentence (Barry Flatman), and finally the driver himself (Mpho Koaho).

Meanwhile, a young doctor named Lynn (Bahar Soomekh) is captured by Amanda (Shawnee Smith again), and forced to care for John “Jigsaw” Kramer (Tobin Bell, awesome as always). While she has no specific knowledge of Jeff’s game, she’s tied to it: She’s wearing a collar with shotgun shells, set to go off if John’s heart stops. She’s told that if John lives long enough for the game to finish, she’ll be released.

Lynn's game works as a much more grounded, realistic horror story. Instead of the usual traps, we're treated to brain surgery with power tools, as Amanda refuses to move John to a hospital. The scenes are realistic enough to make you truly uncomfortable.

Strange as it sounds, I somewhat wish there had been a bit more filler in the early Saw series. This is the only film in which John and Amanda are alive and openly working together, and the results are palpable. Smith gives an amazing performance, in which she takes on the role of daughter to John, while coming across as an imposing, terrifying, and controlling figure to everyone else. I’d pay to watch a movie that was just them talking in between games.

For Jeff’s game, I’m not sure what to say. The traps are disturbing, but other movies have had worse, and none of them are especially gory for this series. The witness is frozen, the judge is (almost) drowned in the bodily fluids of pigs, and the driver has his limbs and neck twisted and broken. Each of the traps follows a basic pattern: Jeff is torn, forgives the person, and tries to save them.

He succeeds only in saving the judge, who is killed off accidentally in the driver’s trap by a stray bullet. I suspect that the judge was given a brief reprieve so that the audience wouldn’t assume failure was the only option. The writers clearly didn’t want any of the three victims sticking around for the climax, so his death comes across as just sloppy, and he contributes nothing. The possibility of him attempting to free the driver without Jeff’s assistance is never even mentioned, even though the judge has no particular grudge against the man.

McFadyen’s performance is good, as are the performances of the other victims. However, against Tobin Bell and Shawnee Smith in a Saw film, it’s nothing to write home about. The only scene that even sticks out in my mind is Jeff screaming “I forgive him!” as the driver dies.

Every article ever written on this movie has mentioned that it was originally intended to be the final entry in the series, and now so have I. Lions gate decided to continue the franchise, and the ending was hastily reshot. While we still get plenty of answers through flashback regarding the events of the previous films, we also get multiple cliffhangers.

Jeff and Lynn are husband and wife, driven apart by the loss of their child. Amanda was responsible for the inescapable traps, rejecting Jigsaw’s philosophy as anything more than a chance to vent her personal demons. When Jeff’s game ends, Amanda refuses to release Lynn, shooting and severely wounding her after a long monologue and flashback, being shot by Jeff in retaliation. However, Jigsaw covers a tape in wax and swallows it, showing he still has plans that continue past his death.

Detective Matthews is shown confronting and being further crippled by Amanda after a brief escape in flashback, with his death being edited out. Donnie Wahlberg was not happy about this, but he was eventually convinced to return for one final film. Given his initial dismissal of the franchise I find it odd that he cared so much what happened to the character.

The remaining cliffhanger was one that was resolved as an aside in the following film, but here seemed as if it would be the primary driving force going forward: Jeff kills John, causing his wife's collar to go off and finish her. He then finds out from a tape recorder that John had abducted his daughter, and she would die unless Jeff played another game. I assume this plotline was unpopular, but I do think it was a good twist that had potential.

For a movie that started out as the ending to the story, it somehow had one of the most dramatic endings of the series. Pure cliffhanger. Jigsaw is dead, but the story is far from over, and everyone is left on the edge of their seat for what John is planning from beyond the grave. While it's far from the best Saw film, it's ending is rivaled only by the original.