Saw VI - The reviews come full circle.
The gloves are off?
Halloween, 2009. Audiences gathered for the sixth and latest instalment of the Saw film series. How would it compare to other sixth entries? Would it be On Her Majesty's Secret Service, or Leonard Part 6?
- Y'know, Hoffman, if you keep sneering like that, your face'll get stuck that way. Oh, wait.
- Do the FBI actually suspect Hoffman or not? It's a bit unclear. I can understand the 'keep your enemies closer' idea, but they don't seem to be doing anything about, and information-share like he's on their side. The 'cover story' - if so it is - would make sense: he would be the leading expert on the Jigsaw case. Because all the rest are dead.
- Actually, they're all dead due to Jigsaw, so Hoffman's survival may be a warning sign in itself.
- 'Did you learn a lesson?' DAMMIT, Hoffman. Does that sound like something a regular cop would ask, one who's not Jigsaw or an insensitive jerk? (Though Hoff is two for two there.)
- Though many points for Simone's reaction to her test. 'NO I DON'T FEEL BETTER BECAUSE NOW I DON'T HAVE AN ARM MORON!' That's a way more reasonable reaction to these ordeals than the Jigsaw-as-saviour that Amanda (and presumably some others) had.
- Hoffman's never going to get anything done if he has to respond to yet more of John's posthumous requests day-in-day-out. Seriously, John, if you know you're dying, you're supposed to put your affairs in order, not start forty-seven new ones.
- Is this a commentary on insurance and/or universal healthcare? Or is Umbrella simply evil because it's a big company? They're always polluting and kicking puppies and knocking down playgrounds to build shopping malls.
- Macabre as the source of it may be, there was something funny in Amanda and Hoffman's bickering, like siblings vying to be Daddy's favourite.
- It's probably Amanda. Amanda's epiphany may have been falling apart, but Hoffman never even had one. His epiphany is 'maybe it would be bad if I let John grass me up' - and you get the impression it's not the first time he's done something the (other) police would want to know about.
- Someone smart also told me that the likelihood of John's gene therapy doing much for him was pretty low. So not forking out all that money for it is good business sense, though morality is the real question. What I don't get is why John's coverage would have been invalidated if he'd paid for the treatment himself. Plainly they already know he had cancer, so it's not like that poor bloke who had a tooth out when he was six or whatever. If it's John's money, surely he can do what he wants with it? If it does cure his cancer, let it - they're less likely to have to pay for something else later. Or do they want him to die so there's no risk of paying him? That seems illogically cruel, as if they kept applying that
thinking they wouldn't get any payments from anyone. Is this something I just don't know about American health insurance, or is because, y'know, evil? - Hank has to suffer and die in a Jigsaw test because he smokes?? The criteria are getting pretty thin.
- You'd think Hoffman would know that dead fingerprints are different to living fingerprints.
- If nothing else, he should know after Erickson tells him so, but he keeps using Strahm's hand (whom, I notice, Thing received no credit for playing).
- Is that...a zoo? Are they in a zoo now?
- Jill definitely is and was aware of John's activities. Amusingly, in one scene she came across as though she's over it, like she's getting tired of her husband tinkering in the shed!
- William isn't going to learn anything from those 'choose who dies' tests. He has no choices where someone doesn't die. If that teaches him anything, it's going to be that his choices result in death no matter what so there's no point in trying to make them differently.
- I know, he wasn't meant to learn anything, because it was really Tara and Brent's test. To see if they could do mercy. So everyone who died in Will's obstacle course died for nought, even in context. These are definitely Hoffman tricks, aren't they?
- Or are they? John passed the details of the victims and testees to Hoffman through Jill. Maybe it was just 'these guys are your next targets' and Hoffman did the rest. Sometime. I've gotta say, I'm getting pretty confused about who contributed what to what tests these days.
- After all, John told Hoffman their work can never be personal. And Kramer the Wise would never embark on something so petty as revenge. So, it must all be a coincidence...right, John?
- Sure, just ask Cecil.
- I think that John already knew about Amanda being present at the night of Gideon's death. This isn't too far-fetched - he's known things without witnesses before, and it's not even impossible that she saw her at the time. Given what he thought/hoped about Amanda, about her becoming a better person...and his honest affection for her, he may have moved past it when she had her epiphany. ('Forgave' somehow seems too noble for him, but it may fit - although it's not like she was responsible.) In fact, it's not impossible that the letter from John that Hoffman removed to place the blackmail letter even had that very message to Amanda. That there would be some cruel irony. Or if Hoffman in turn knows that, ironic cruelty.
- Is Brent liable for murder now? As far as I can tell, there was no coercion in his killing William. He and Tara were simply offered the choice to kill William if they wanted to. She didn't, he did. There might be some balance of circumstances to thrash out in court, but I can't see why he wouldn't be charged with murder.
- Killing Will REALLY GRUSOMELY, I might add!
- It actually only just hit me that Jill's actions at the end of the film make sense. John leaves Hoffman some of the envelopes to work on the obstacle course for this movie. Jill is actually supposed to use the reverse bear-trap to administer Hoffman's long-delayed test. However, thanks to Pamela, she knows about the letter Hoff wrote to Amanda, something John didn't anticipate. Jill didn't bother to set up the key or anything else, deciding to punish him. Amanda, after all, was one of her charges too, from her addiction days, and everything we saw about Jill pointed to her really caring about the people at her clinic. Not being as calm (or holier-than-thou) as her ex-husband, she repaid Hoffman for what he did to Amanda in a way that was...mostly in line with John's request.
- Besides, I don't think she wants to continue the Jigsaw work, but I'm sure she'd be all the happier if there weren't any loose ends.
- Like a bloodied, living, and very angry Hoffman...!
The twists:
Tara and Brent aren't Will's family, they're the family of a customer he denied coverage, tested to see if they prefer mercy or revenge. It ends up about 50/50.
Also, Jill's actually gonna kill Hoffman.
The rolling Jigsaw death-count: 41
(Adding to the body count this time we have William, Hank, the solitary associate, Debbie, Eddie (the money lender), Erickson, the technician, and four of the Dog Pit. Perez turns out to be alive, only to be killed again, so that's a wash in terms of the overall total. Nonetheless, I think this is the most death-hungry of the films so far, with eleven Jigsaw killings. Do you think Hoffman can make it a half-century for Team 'Saw next movie?)
The accumulating skills and attributes of John 'Jigsaw' Kramer:
Engineer
Surgeon
Surveillance technician
Toxicologist
Property magnate
Philanthropist
Puppeteer
Anatomist
Architect
Sound mixer
Also, he owns a zoo for some reason.
The skills and attributes of Mark 'Jigsaw' Hoffman:
Everything. He's pretty much Batman by this point.
'Game over.'
Jill to Hoffman after she puts him in the bear-trap. Wait...was that one of John's instructions too? How do these people always know to say that to one another?
Less meandering than the last two, I felt. It feels like the story is somewhat back on track. I thought it was the best since the opening trilogy, though they really are fond of spectacle these days.