At its core, "Saw III" is a life lesson surrounded in blood, gore and violence. As with the first two films, serial killer Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) wants his subjects to understand life is a fragile thing and they should respect themselves and each other because life can be taken away at any time. This time out, he wants to teach one more lesson: the lesson of forgiveness.
To that end, he has protégé Amanda (Shawnee Smith) kidnap a couple with marital problems. The wife, Lynn, is a doctor charged with keeping Jigsaw alive long enough for the other participant to make his way through the maze. The husband, Adam, is thrown into different tasks, all of which revolve around people associated with his son's death. Can Adam put his hate and vengeance aside long enough to work his way through the maze? Will Lynn keep Jigsaw breathing with rudimentary medical instruments and the constant threat of an explosive collar around her neck?
The "Saw" franchise has succeeded-relatively speaking-where other horror films fail. The villain has an ulterior movie for doing the things he does. Jigsaw isn't just a mean and bad person in any of these films he wants his subjects to learn lessons a person learns when they are near death. Why does Freddy Krueger do the things he does? Vengeance. Jason Voorhies? Michael Myers? Those three characters are the icons of the horror genre. Their actions deal with blood, but not on the level of Jigsaw. They are strictly slasher characters. There is more thought put into one Jigsaw puzzle than was put into all the blood spattering in any of those other three genres. That is what elevates "Saw" above everything else in the horror domain.
"Saw III" feels like the final film in a series. All the loose ends are wrapped up, characters meet the end of their storylines and, frankly, that's exactly as it should be. When this movie rises to the top of the box office chart this weekend, it is a forgone conclusion a fourth installment will receive the greenlight in time for next Halloween. However, that film will have lost its edge and its mythos. As we know from the second flick, Jigsaw is dying at the beginning of this film. No, it's not a spoiler. It's a cold hard fact. Without this man pulling the strings from behind a computer monitor, the entire exercise loses its reason for being. We never get the feeling there is enough press coverage of the events portrayed in any of the three films that would create a copycat. As much as this should be the end of the series, the ending yet again leaves the door open for another trip to the same well. I can't say the ending doesn't hit you about halfway through the nearly 2-hour film it is obvious if you're looking for it. And it could very well be an interesting storyline, but at what cost?
Right now, this series is revered through horror circles. It is popular, it is chic, it is a further extension of the new age of horror in which there is no literal boogeyman, just the inner one. It's a new kind of horror/thriller film, as I already mentioned. With additional sequels that don't have the participation of the regular characters, we would essentially be getting "Saw"-lite, a watered down version of what has made the "franchise". No, with the way this film ties up all the loose ends, delves back into the history of the first two films and treats all of its characters, this should be the final installment.
With all that being said, there isn't a whole lot to criticize here. Notoriously, horror films are critic and review proof, so it wouldn't really matter if this turned out to be the worst film in creation. It's not. It's definitely bloody, gory and more than a bit profane. None of that should come as a surprise. There is enough sawing, freezing, cutting, oozing, drilling, shooting…well, you get the idea…for three or four films. "Saw III" wants to up the ante as it did with the first and second films. It doesn't quite get there. "Saw II" had more scenes of torture and gore than this installment, but it didn't have one crucial thing: the continuity. Yes, there were references to the bathroom and Jigsaw himself, but nothing really tied the films together.
Here, though, the entire storyline comes full circle with Adam and Amanda. Everything is thrown into the light, exposed and explained. And I think that is the greatest asset to this movie. It understands it is part-hopefully the final part-of a series and takes that responsibility seriously. The story ties together thanks to the use of numerous flashbacks at the end of the production. One of the greatest surprises is that it all makes sense in the end. Amanda, Adam, Jigsaw, bathrooms, Eric, Kerry, dead sons, estranged marriages, saws, tumors, blood…great care went into the writing of the picture to make sure the fans were satisfied with it all.
In true horror fashion, the leftover characters from the second film (remember, everyone from "Saw" died) make a return appearance…only to be disposed of. While I'm not usually a proponent of this kind of screenwriting, it was necessary in order to movie this story along. It also provides a nice coda for Amanda, who was supposed to have taken over for Jigsaw once he died. There's a father-daughter relationship between the two that is played subtlety enough so it doesn't beat anyone over the head. In the end, though, she does let him down. He laid down the rules for Lynn and Amanda can't follow them. There's a deeper story about disappointment which is only touched on.
But the moral lesson is forgiveness. There is a moment at the end, when everything seems to be finally over for Jeff and Lynn, where Jigsaw asks for Jeff's forgiveness. Instead of learning from the three people he met previously, Jeff demonstrates what is most likely human nature: never forgiving or forgetting. Because of his stubbornness, he loses everything dear to him. The only objective Jeff has to accomplish is the following, according to Jigsaw: he must learn to put anger and vengeance aside in order to be a proper father and husband to his daughter and wife. In the end, what goes through his mind? Does he attempt to save the three people because it is what is expected of him? Does he do it because he realizes they are human beings? We're never quite sure. He can definitely leave all of them to die, but tries to help all three-albeit too late.
And that's the most damning thing about the picture. After everything he's gone through, after being told he and his wife will go free, after being told what he should have learned…Jeff doesn't learn anything. He has a one-track mind set on taking revenge for all the bad things done to him. Perhaps it's a mediation on humanity the writers were going for. Whatever the reasoning, it's nearly the only thing I have a problem with regarding "Saw III". The visual style of the first two films is carried over here with hyper-kinetic editing and the distinctive color tones and darkness in various scenes. The acting is what we'd expect from a horror film not bad, not Oscar worthy but somewhere in between. Storywise, the beats hang together well and there are no major deviations from what we think should be happening.
Definitely not for everyone, "Saw III", with all its accompanying gore and blood, is every bit as good as the first two films. Since I am hesitant to give a horror/thriller a better grade than the best films I've seen this year ("The Departed" and "The Illusionist"), I'll give it the equal. "Saw III" gets a 7 out of 10. As always, your mileage may vary. Obviously, this isn't a family film, one for the easily squeamish or the easily grossed out. But so much the better.