Saw: The Final Chapter
There is something to be said for the continuity the “Saw” franchise has maintained through seven years and seven movies. The story has remained compact, tightly constructed, and convoluted only in how many deus ex machinas it’s brought into the picture to keep the franchise going. “Saw 3D,” promoted as “the final chapter,” keeps that tradition alive and kicking. Whether the franchise does the same will be determined by how greedy Lionsgate gets.
The screenwriters, Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton (who’ve written every installment since “Saw IV”), bring things full circle by revealing the fate of Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes), the doctor who was locked in that grungy bathroom back in the original “Saw.” Last we’d seen him, he was sliding off to get help after having sawed through his own leg to escape. We see his “success” early on in “Saw 3D,” as he was not only able to cauterize the wound, but also was eventually found. Now he walks with a cane, but he has no illusions of salvation from his ordeal. The same cannot be said for Bobby Dugen (Sean Patrick Flannery), a supposed Jigsaw survivor who has written about his ordeal, and has become an inspiration to the world as well as coming to help his fellow survivors deal with the experience.
Even though Jigsaw (real name John Kramer, played by Tobin Bell) died back in “Saw III,” the games continue as Det. Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) has carried on Jigsaw’s legacy while Jill (Betsy Russell), John’s wife, has worked behind-the-scenes to keep the games alive in her own way. After nearly killing Hoffman at the end of “Saw VI,” Jill goes to Internal Affairs and officer Gibson (Chad Donella) for protection from Hoffman. But like other dealings with regards to her husband, nothing is easily forgotten.
The one thing that has kept the “Saw” franchise unique among slasher franchises is the unnerving sense of morality at the dark heart of Jigsaw’s “games.” These are not “innocents” but people who’ve been complicit in the death of others and sins against loved ones. True, several of Jigsaw’s victims have a personal importance to Kramer (like Dr. Gordon or the claims adjuster in “Saw VI”), but the point is that each of Jigsaw’s “victims” is responsible for a life (or several), and to earn a sense of personal honor back, Jigsaw makes them sacrifice a piece of themselves to “reform.”
In all honesty, “Saw 3D” doesn’t start off well. I found it a bit too self-aware of its own brutality, not to mention voyeuristic and a little sexist (three of the victims are female; one gratuitously so). But once the film finds its storytelling footing, it picks up steam and made its way to among the head of the class of “Saw” sequels. Still, while this is one film that really knew how to use 3D, the ending leads me to suspect that while billed as “the final chapter,” “Saw 3D” may not be the last time we see the legacy of Jigsaw. I’ll be the first to admit that this franchise has been more “fun” than I would have expect, I’ll also be the first to say, “enough already.”
