Saw: The Final Chapter

 

Saw: The Final Chapter is easily the best Saw film from outside the original trilogy. I would even argue it to be better than Saw III in terms of raw entertainment value. This isn't exactly intentional. Rather, with the Box Office haul of Saw VI dropping off they decided to compress what otherwise would have been a two-part finale into a single movie, leaving us with a product that, at minimum, doesn't' waste a single second of our time.

It took me a while to accept the opening sequence, in which two men (Sebastian Pigott and Jon Cor )decide to let their ex-girlfriend (Anne Green) die. However, having watched the sequence a number of times, there's no denying that “Dina” is a psychological abuser who would happily watch both of them die for her own convenience. It's not the first time we've seen abusers in this series.

The film revolves around three major players: Hoffman (Costas Mandylor, as always), seeking revenge on Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell), Bobby Dagen (Sean Patrick Flanery), a man who became rich pretending to be a Jigsaw survivor, who finds himself in a real trap, and the return of Dr. Gordon (Cary Elwes). Intermixed with these we get at least two other traps that don't really tie into anything, except to say “look what we were planning for a later movie!” At one point Jill Tuck even dreams about Hoffman killing her, so that the filmmakers can squeeze in yet another death sequence.

The ending of Bobby's storyline is controversial among fans, to say the least. His series of traps, much like Saw VI, revolves around trying to save people who knew the truth and choose to remain silent, and Bobby proves to be astoundingly incompetent, failing every test (you can't help but wonder if Jigsaw intentionally gave him all the hard ones, because he couldn't stand the thought of a faker actually pulling it off). The final trap, however, required him to re-enact his own fictional trap (lifting himself up by hooks inserted into his pectoral muscles), to save his trophy wife (Gina Holden), who never knew he'd lied.

First of all, it's debated whether Jigsaw intended for this trap to fail, because Bobby described an impossible trap, or if the trap's failure wasn't Jigsaw's intention. I don't personally feel that Jigsaw would give someone a trap that was unwinnable, so I favor the theory that the trap was intended to work. But his pectorals rip, and Bobby's completely innocent wife is burned alive.

Either way, I think ending at this point was a bad idea. If there was an out, I'd like to know what it was. If there wasn't, I'd like someone to give us some form of exposition of Jigsaw's failure. If Jigsaw was just being a vindictive prick prepared to kill an innocent for the pettiest reasons imaginable, then I'd like to see him say that in flashback. Either way, if there's ever an eight Saw film, I want Bobby back for more.

This is probably Mandylor's best performance as Hoffman. That's probably the result of finally giving him a clearly defined motivation: revenge on the woman who tried to kill him. Hoffman seems to have finally given up on the games themselves, and is instead focused on Jill.

Some say that Russell's character became weaker in this film, but I disagree. In the last movie she exuded confidence because she caught Hoffman off-guard. She knows it isn't going to happen again. She seeks out the protection of Matt Gibson (Chad Donella), an Internal Affairs detective who, while trying his best to protect Jill, seems to view the entire Jigsaw affairs as a bizarrely homicidal dysfunctional family...and he's not actually wrong...

Gibson is a nice new addition to the cast, almost like a more emotionally stable version of Strahm. He held a grudge against Hoffman long before the latter became an Apprentice, reporting him for brutality, and arresting men under him for the same after joining IA. He's probably the single most noble law enforcement officer in this entire series...and he's killed off when he and a number of other men are lured into a trap, and machine guns and poison gas come out of the walls to kill them all...

Gordon makes a cameo at a survivor's meeting at the beginning of the film, but his reappearance comes at the end. I don't think there was a single fan who didn't know why he was in this movie. Gordon as the final Apprentice had been a popular fan-theory for years, based on the fact that many of the traps' preparations required extensive medical knowledge that none of the existing Jigsaw killers possessed.

The final twist of the story: Hoffman is using traps and other misdirection throughout the film to draw the police away from headquarters, while switching himself with the corpse of a neo-Nazi killed in a trap in order to get close to Jill Tuck, with as few police officers to kill as possible. With his capture of Jill Tuck, the Reverse Bear Trap finally gets to claim a victim after seven films of waiting. I like the scenes between the two, particularly because Jill refuses to speak a single word to Hoffman. She's defiant to the end, even knowing that she's screwed.

However, just as Hoffman destroys his lair and attempts to flee, he's ambushed by Gordon and his own apprentices (originally the entire survivor's group would have joined, but instead we get two masked men, who the creators say were from the trap at the beginning). Gordon locks Hoffman in the same room where Gordon himself was tested, says “Game Over,” and locks the door, with the movie ending.

I don't exactly consider this a satisfying conclusion. Hoffman was able to get out of the Reverse Bear Trap in slightly more than sixty second. I find it unlikely that he can't get past a chain on his leg, and a locked door, when his only limitation is how long it takes him to die of thirst (or possibly of hunger, if the water still works in the bathroom).

This movie is cool. Yes, there are better horror movies out there, but I challenge you to find any others that are more energetic and just plain entertaining. I hope the Saw series eventually comes back. As I said, I don't consider Dagen's story truly complete. However, for now, this is where it ends. And with that I move onto the series that replaced Saw at the Halloween Box Office.