Saw VI

When comparing Saw VI to Saw V find myself in a conflict. Is it worse to have no substance, or to utterly fail in your attempt to bring substance? As with the previous film we have a series of traps that only tangentially tie into the main story, while Hoffman's (Costas Mandylor) story continues in parallel. This time, however, we get a few more shots of Hoffman watching the victims.

This movie came out in 2009, five months before the Affordable Care Act was passed. So, the filmmakers gave us a Saw movie designed to beat you over the head with the need for healthcare reform. I certainly agree with this message, but John Kramer (Tobin Bell, in recordings and flashbacks) is not the person I want lecturing me about it.

That said, this is clearly a movie that had a lot more effort put into it than the material really called for. I particularly loved Shauna MacDonald and Devon Bostick in minor roles as a mother and son (will elaborate on that later). It's clear that both of them put their heart and souls into these roles.

It's at this point that we're really getting a sense of how unbelievably petty Jigsaw was in life. An insurance executive named William Easton (Peter Outerbridge) is selected for a game because he didn't let John take part in an experimental treatment for his cancer...oh, sorry, he's selected for a game because he “chooses who lives and who dies” without considering “the will to live.” So, all of his traps are themed around the idea of choosing who he could save. He experiences four traps, two of which pit his survival against someone else's, and another two simply make him choose between victims.

Eventually, having made it through the traps, William comes to a an enclosed room. He can see his sister on one side (Samantha Lemole), and Tara and Brent (MacDonald and Bostic) on the other. Tara and Brent are the wife and son of a man William denied coverage to based on an application mistake. They have been watching his entire journey through a monitor, and are told to decide whether or not to throw a switch that will kill William.

Tara attempts to rationalize this by arguing that William might deny someone else coverage (...as opposed to the person that the company will hire to replace him doing it?...), but it ultimately unable to kill him. Brent then steps forward and pulls the switch for no reason other than pure revenge, injecting William with dozens of syringes of acid to dissolve him. I'm a bit surprised Brent didn't face any consequences himself for doing this, given Jigsaw's past distaste for revenge, but apparently he believed Brent had suffered enough.

While I don't want to go into every trap, there are two theories about this film that I think need to be addressed. The first is the theory that William's test was designed so that, if he had acted differently and abandoned his existing way of thinking, all of the victims might have survived. Each trap has a specific theory about how this would have been possible, and the theories vary in terms of plausibility. Most notably in the single largest trap, a carousel with six victims and a shotgun that can be directed upward when William pushes one of two buttons and stabs himself in the hand, we're told by Jigsaw that “only two” can survive. There is absolutely no evidence other than Jigsaw's word that all six can't be saved by pushing the buttons repeatedly, and William makes no effort to go against Jigsaw's claim.

The other theory is that Brent killed William out of a belief that his father's death was related to sexism. Notably, over the course of the film two women die, along with five men, and three women are saved. The fact that William never saves a single man is commented on exactly once. At the end of the aforementioned carousel trap, William chooses to save two women. The latter of the two claims to be pregnant, and the final surviving man, now doomed, yells “a bitch says one thing and it's all over!”

Whether or not William is actually sexist is open for debate. Either way, I do like the theory that Brent thought he was. It means that William's actions in the test did, at minimum, have some influence over Brent's decision. The story isn't as interesting if there was literally nothing he could do to save himself.

This is probably Hoffman's finest film, mainly because it's the first film in which he's legitimately challenged. Hoffman continues in his attempts to frame Strahm, but reality ensues and the police are able to detect indications of the frame-up. By the end of the film Hoffman has been found-out, killed several other police officers, and been forced to go on the run.

More importantly, we find out that John promised his fiance Jill (Betsy Russell) “a way out.” He left her the reverse bear-trap from the first film. After his escape, she tasers Hoffman, straps him to a chair, and attaches it without a key. He's able to escape by breaking his hand, and ripping open his cheek.

Whatever you think of the rest of the film, Hoffman escaping from that trap is one of the most legitimately badass things ever seen in this series. It's the thing that made me oddly root for him entering the final film of the series. Even more so, because Jill left the room, saying “Game Over.” There's exactly one other character in this entire series who overcame a “Game Over” (discussed in the next film), so Hoffman's status is fairly elite.

Ultimately, I feel I have to judge these stories separately. The main story, William's, is a political rant disguised as a story not worth telling, but told extremely well. However, Hoffman's story is down-right compelling, even as Hoffman is a truly despicable human being.

Overall, I'd say this is the first Saw film to represent a real uptick over the previous movie. It is more enjoyable than V easily, even if it fails by any normal standard of filmmaking. It has all the subtlety of a sack of bricks to the head, but at least that's something, where V was simply a bore.