Following this clue to a map in the
classroom, Rigg finds a box with his next destination: go home. Only
the “G” in “go” is written in a specialized font that matches
the same lettering used in one of Jigsaw's properties, the Gideon Meatpacking Plant. Hmm, you think the second the police got his name they would have started searching all the properties registered to his name. You know, just in case he might have had a hidden base there or something. A
quick montage of the various traps used in the movie shows them
branded with the telltale letter. Instead of helping Morgan, Rigg
simply hands her Jigsaw's key and tells her she has to save herself.
He leaves, pulling the fire alarm on his way out.
This draws Strahm and team, constantly
one step behind it seems. Perez gets a call where she learns all of
tonight's victims were all represented by Art Blank at one point of
their lives, who also JUST HAPPENS to be Jill's lawyer. Wow, there
are a lot of elements in play right now. It's gonna take a HELL of a
montage to tie all this together smoothly. The reveals keep coming
though as Perez finds out Jill also owns the school, leading to her
and Strahm searching the rest of it.
In an office they find a Billy puppet
with a note and a tape player on his- and you know what? How come
they never tried tracing the guy who's buying thirty million tape
players in the city? This film was made in 2007, when digital
recorders were long since the norm so this outdated technology would
be bound to stand out when it's being sold by the pallet load,
wouldn't you think? Anyway, Perez reaches out and hits play like the
genius she is. Good thing that doll wasn't a pressure sensitive
explosive or anything! I love how all these highly trained
professionals can't grasp the concept of securing a crime scene
first.
“Hello Agent Perez, and welcome to
the world that you have long studied. Your partner Agent Strahm will
soon take the life of an innocent man. Heed my warning Agent Perez,
your next move is critical.”. Billy starts whispering “open the
door” but it's so quiet that Perez can't hear it so she leans in
all niiiiiiice and cloooose, just in time for Billy's face to explode
and drive shrapnel through her face. Strahm calls the paramedics and
they take her away, Perez handing him Morgan's key before she's taken
to the ambulance.
With nineteen minutes remaining on the
clock, Art looks at a piece of paper with his instructions and hands
Matthews a gun and a bullet. With time running short the pace is
starting to pick back up, as is my interest finally. An enraged
Strahm goes back to Jill, going major bad cop on her as his sanity is
also beginning to slip. He demands to know what the deal with Art
is, leading to flashback number one zillion. John and Art were
partners in a big deal to build a series of apartments, but John has
absolutely fallen apart after Gideon's death and is no longer
honouring his end of the agreement. This... adds nothing to the
movie and doesn't even answer Strahm's question so Jill skips ahead
to after John's suicide attempt as seen in the last movie.
She tracks him down at one of his
eighty factories, finding surveillance photos of Cecil along with
sketches of ominous looking traps. She confronts him over this, John
going into his own flashback of kidnapping the drug addict. At this
rate, this movie is officially going to have more layers than
Inception. Hell, maybe this is a prequel to that because it
would actually explain some of the bigger plotholes in this thing...
Cecil gets chosen for the honour of
being in Jigsaw's first ever trap: the Knife Chair. He finds himself
bound to a chair with sharp restraints cutting open his wrists and
ankles, in order to free himself he has to push his face through a
harness of vicious looking knives that'll unlock his restraints. He
actually manages to do it and frees himself, leaping at John to
attack him but misses and winds up in a cage of razor wire. OUCH!
The flashbacks end, Strahm doing that
magic thing that only people in the movies can do where they looks at
photos they've already seen a million times but THIS time pick out an
important detail. He makes the connection between John and the
Gideon Meatpacking Plant, rushing off like a bat out of hell. The
plant is about to become a very popular destination, as Rigg arrives
outside. Inside, Art and Matthews come to the realization that the
entrance to the room has some kind of crazy trap attached to it, Art
commenting he hopes Rigg doesn't try to come through the door.
Entering the building, Rigg finds an
empty box with no note in it. This will look very familiar if you
watched the last film, because he's now retracing Jeff's steps.
Strahm pulls up outside in his car, having brought NO ONE ELSE WITH
HIM. Holy shit, the Idiot Balls are flying around in this one like a
freaking tennis match. As he approaches the door, the agent pulls
out his cellphone and calls in back up. WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T YOU DO THIS
ON THE WAY?!? Or shoot, how about when you were at the station
SURROUNDED BY ARMED POLICE OFFICERS?!? I'm seriously starting to
doubt this guy is an FBI agent.
With less than four minutes to go, Art
takes off his coat to reveal a strange device attached to his back.
Flashback jillion shows him right after surviving his test, finding
an envelope and the customary tape player. We don't get to hear what
it says as we go back to Rigg, Strahm, and Jeff wandering the
factory, pistols at the ready. Wait, what? FUCKING JEFF?!? This
whole movie has been taking place concurrently with Saw III!
Save your questions for the end please, we'll get to this mindfuck
then.
The end of the last movie plays out
again while Art brings out a device he says will release all three
men in the room when the timer is up. Strahm enters the room outside
of Jigsaw's makeshift hospital room, hearing the aftermath of Lynn's
shotgun collar exploding. Rigg makes his way to the fateful door,
kicking his way in despite Matthews screaming for him to stop.
Matthews uses the single bullet in his gun to shoot him to try to
stop him but his too late as the door goes flying open and springs
the trap. Two giant blocks of ice descend from either side of the
room and crush Matthews' head like a grape. Rigg, doubled over from
the bullet's impact, is still able to shoot Art as he was advancing
on him. Hoffman looks fearful as his trap begins to fire up...
Strahm is unable to enter the next room
as the door sealed shut, but luckily he has the key Perez gave him so
he opens it. Inside Jeff screams at him about Corbett and draws his
gun, Strahm forced to shoot him dead in perceived self defense (Jeff
used his one bullet on Amanda, but Strahm would have no way of
knowing this). Again, please hold the questions for the end of the
presentation. Rigg and Art lie gutshot on the ground,
Rigg blaming Art for all of this. Art tries to tell him this was all
part of Jigsaw's test, taking out his tape player but Rigg headshots
him as he thought he was going for a weapon.
“Hello Officer Rigg, if you are
hearing this then you have reached Detective Matthews and Detective
Hoffman in under 90 minutes, resulting in their deaths. The rules
were clear, you were warned. They had to save themselves. Their
salvation was out of your hands. Time was on your side, but your
obsession wouldn't let you wait. Instead of saving Detective
Matthews, you cost him his life. You failed your final test.”.
Rigg tries to pull himself to his feet
as HOFFMAN walks up behind him, hopefully surprising NONE OF YOU.
Montagevision kicks in to explain all this, as we see it was indeed
Hoffman that wrote the letter for Amanda. Hoffman and Rigg simply
look at each other, Hoffman finally leaving but not before dropping
the movie ending “Game over” line. Oh spoke too soon, we still have Strahm
knee deep in the dead. Hoffman closes the door again and seals him
in as we come full circle to the morgue, revealing all of this took place BEFORE the morgue scene that opened the film as Hoffman listens to the tape intended for him.
“You feel you now have control, don't
you? You think you will walk away untested? I promise that my work
will continue, that I have ensured. By hearing this tape some will
assume that this is over, but I am still among you. You think it's
over just because I am dead? It's not over. The games have just
begun.”.
Cue the credits.
BLOODY BLOODY HELL, there was more
going on in this movie than all four Transformers movies
combined and then multiplied by ten. Let's just lay it all out in
chronological order before going in deep:
-At some point Hoffman becomes an
apprentice of Jigsaw, just like Amanda did, helping to orchestrate
the events of at least the past two movies. His unlimited access to
police resources GREATLY explains how Jigsaw was able to find out
things I previously bitched about in those movies, so job well done
there movie! Although, this STILL doesn't explain how Jigsaw would
have known about Danica failing to report what he saw because there
wouldn't have been a police record of that.
-Shortly after Saw II,
Amanda tries to kill Matthews in the bathroom hallway. Jigsaw
somehow finds out about this and has Hoffman rescue the detective,
keeping him alive in a different room hidden from Amanda.
-Six months later, Saw III
begins with Hoffman assisting Amanda in capturing Detective Kerry and
placing her in an inescapable trap. I'm assuming he knew about the
trap being rigged based off his comment about how it was built for
her execution. Kerry was a threat to him, so he didn't step in to
save her life.
-Jigsaw's end game was to test BOTH of
his apprentices, leading to the events of III and
IV which took place at almost the exact same time. III
was Amanda's test while IV began Hoffman's test, although we
won't see what that is until the next movie.
-Hoffman uses Kerry's death to his
advantage, as he knew she was the FBI's liaison and that they would
get involved. He ensures this by planting a bullet casing with
Rigg's fingerprint near Kerry's body to keep them suspicious of the
SWAT leader, which is VITAL to the plan he's scheming on.
-While this is going on, Jigsaw's plan
gets underway as he has Amanda kidnap Lynn to help keep him alive as
well as being a key cog in his test of his female protege. Detective
Fisk reports this to Hoffman, who says he'll look into it when in
reality he knows who took her and where she is.
-Amanda next kidnaps Jeff and his
daughter Corbett, bringing them to Jigsaw's base of operations, the
Gideon Meatpacking Plant. Jeff is given two hours to make it through
the building and pass his test, involving facing and forgiving the
man who accidentally killed his son Dylan.
-While this is going on, Hoffman begins
his own game as he's targeted Rigg to become his own apprentice.
Hoffman forces lawyer Art Blank to help set up Rigg's test, making
Art think its the actual Jigsaw ordering him around. Part of this
involves setting up his own kidnapping, Art not knowing he was
capturing his own boss. I can only assume Jigsaw knew about ALL of
this but let it go on because it posed no threat to his test of
Amanda since he can see the future. Because seriously, any slight
deviation in Hoffman's plan could have totally screwed up Jigsaw's.
-Half an hour after Jeff's test starts,
Rigg's own trial begins as he only has ninety minutes to make it
through his. Again, remember the whole point of Jeff's test is
actually to test Amanda, which involves him anticipating Jeff's
actions to an absolute flawless degree with almost no room for error.
-This is a tangent here, but this
actually exposes one of the biggest flaws in the series: if Jigsaw is
THAT good at predicting human nature he has to know almost no one
will EVER pass his games. Hell, he had to rig the Nerve Gas House in
II because Xavier was well on his way to winning it. He all
know Jigsaw is a psychopath, but things like this expose him as a
gigantic hypocrite and not the noble saviour he likes to portray
himself as.
-Anyway, Jigsaw knows Jeff and, in
turn, Amanda will fail their tests. This doesn't seem to bother him
since he “despises murders” (despite TOTALLY BEING ONE HIMSELF)
and takes no action to prevent Amanda's death.
-Hoffman, also a murderer, plays off
all this in his game as he also knows Jeff and Amanda will fail. He
ties this to Rigg's trial, and HOLY SHIT does he out-Jigsaw Jigsaw
here. I cannot stress this enough how ridiculous the timing works
out here because Hoffman's plan involves juggling two completely
separate storylines. Rigg's is silly enough because there's dozens
of things that could have interfered with him getting to the plant in
time (TRAFFIC MUCH?), but Strahm's... holy shit.
-Hoffman must have pulled Strahm's FBI
psychological profile and committed it to memory, because he knows
this man down to his bone marrow. He knows Strahm will follow the
bread crumb trail to the school, leading to Perez getting gravely
wounded by an exploding Billy. Hoffman knows Perez pretty fucking
good as well, as he's able to anticipate her being just conscious
enough after nearly dying to give Strahm the key to the plant.
-The next major example of Hoffman's
psychic abilities is knowing Strahm will return to Jill to get the
location of the plant (which also means he knows Jill well enough to
the exact perfect moment for her to divulge the address) and then
TOTALLY DISREGARD PROTOCOL by going there alone.
-Everything happens perfectly, Jeff
kills Amanda and Jigsaw which in turn kills Lynn. Strahm appears
right on cue to kill him, just as Hoffman magically foresaw, and gets sealed in the medical room. Rigg
fails his test which leads to everyone else dying, Hoffman outing
himself as the next Jigsaw.
-This is where things start getting
complicated. Jigsaw figured Jeff would fail his test so he set up
another game involving him having to rescue his daughter, but we
STILL haven't got to see what that was going to be and at this point,
I'm thinking we never will. This leaves Corbett's whole plot
dangling, but it's safe to say the scene with Hoffman carrying a
stuffed animal indicates it was mean for her. But seeing as we still
have three movies left, I'm guessing this will be addressed.
-There's also the autopsy scene, which
clearly takes place AFTER everything else we've seen. Jigsaw's body
has been transported from the sealed room to the morgue, which means
either Strahm escaped or Hoffman came back to kill him. Again, the
next movie will explain all this.
One thing the next movie won't explain
is something I ranted about at the beginning of this review: HOW DID
THE FBI KNOW AMANDA WAS WORKING WITH JIGSAW?!? Originally it seemed
like they would have figured this out since her body was found next
to her mentor, but since the autopsy wasn't shown in chronological
order to trick us, there is absolutely no way they could have known
this.
The screenwriters got so caught trying
to be clever and trick us that I think even THEY got confused by the
continuity of this whole movie. You COULD make the case the feds
learned about Amanda from Daniel Matthews (remember him?), but since
we never saw what happened to him after the end of II it's up
in the air if even he knew that she was in on everything. This isn't
a movie destroying plothole, but it does really stand out in a series
that is shockingly crafted around a pretty solid timeline.
PHEW! I need a nap after all of that.
I never thought a movie that's essentially about idiots winding up in
sadistic traps would turn out to be the most complicated movie I've
reviewed to date. But, most importantly, it was a much better movie
than the last one. Far from great, but a good movie nonetheless
despite how much it drags towards the middle.
I was disappointed that Rigg really
wasn't the focus of the movie like advertised, instead turning out to
be the worst part of the film. His scenes really didn't add anything
to the story, and he got almost no chances for character moments
besides standing around looking pained. Lyriq Bent was, once again, totally wasted which is a crime worthy of winding up in a Jigsaw trap. This man is an excellent actor and deserved better, especially in his series swansong. That makes me a very sad panda zombie. Strahm was the true star of the movie,
as he was being groomed to become the next lead of the series. He
was bland but serviceable, established as an intelligent foil for the
mastermind that is Jigsaw. Y'know, something Kerry SHOULD HAVE BEEN.
And I should amend that by saying semi-intelligent, because going to
the plant without backup is unforgivable.
We also have our new
Jigsaw, who seems decent thus far but pales SO MUCH to the human acting clinic
that is Tobin Bell. They telegraphed him being a villain
far too much in my opinion, as his reveal was not even remotely a
surprise if you were even half paying attention. The attempt to
recreate the shock twist of the first film fell quite flat here.
Which brings us to what I thought was
the film's REAL twist: that this took place parallel to III.
I thought this was brilliant and it drew a WAY bigger reaction from
the theater I saw this in than Hoffman's true colours. The second
Jeff showed up on the screen drew a huge gasp from everyone, because
no one saw this coming. And yet it WAS properly set up with that
brief line about Lynn going missing, something easily missed the
first time watching this. Textbook example of how all plot twists
should be done, a little clue early on that is rewarding on repeated
viewings.
That's pretty much all there is to say
about Saw IV, a largely entertaining film with an amazingly
complex story handled much better than your average movie would
juggle so many plot threads. Sadly I wish I could say this was the
end of the Saw saga, because it CERTAINLY would have gone in the
history books remembered much better than it currently is. The
franchise pretty much goes off the cliff from here on out, as you'll
see with the next chapter of Jigsaw's twisted tale.
Read about the freefall here!
Read about the freefall here!
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