There are few modern directors more worthy of emulation than David Fincher, an iconoclast who can make an utterly black outlook
seem like the most enjoyable two hours you've ever spent. So it is with great pleasure that I introduce you to James Wan, whose first film, "Saw," is the work of a man who I daresay has seen "Seven," "The Game" and "Panic Room" a few times and who has learned from them. Here's a guy who can out-dismal David Fincher. "Saw" is a movie of ideas -- clever, diabolical ideas, often very well-executed and entertaining, in a macabre, grisly sort of way. It is not a movie of words, as the dialogue tends to be rather standard, nor is it a movie of supreme originality, as it has the same dumb cops who never call for backup and who find the clues in the same ways as all the movie cops before them. But the ideas -- ooooh, the ideas. We open on two men, Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) and the young Adam (Leigh Whannell, who also scripted), each chained to walls opposite each other in a large, decrepit old bathroom in some kind of warehouse. Lying on the floor between them is a man who has evidently shot himself in the head. He holds a tape recorder in his hand. Playing back the tape, the men learn that if Lawrence does not kill Adam by 4 p.m., the person responsible for putting them there will kill Lawrence's wife and daughter. How Lawrence is to murder Adam when they cannot reach each other and when weapons are scarce, I will leave for you to discover.
To read the rest of this review, click on the relevant link below.