See Saw

[Pic Courtesy IMDB]

Saw the English flick Saw yesterday on DVD. Its a serial killer thriller but not your average one. A really screwed up killer, a non-linear screenplay and some gruesome imagery make this one stand out from other recent, predictable movies in the same genre like Twisted. The movie begins with two men chained to an old, dirty bathroom. Making the room messier is the bloody corpse lying between them. One of the men has to kill the other to get out alive and the MO of the killer leads him to understand that the Jigsaw killer is behind this one too. Heightening the tension is the fact that the man's family will be killed unless he kills the other man.

The movie itself is assembled like a jigsaw puzzle, with flashbacks serving as pieces that reveal more of the picture with each new piece. The director uses several techniques to heighten the tension and most of them work. There are also quite a few gory scenes that are not easy to stomach(in the case of 1 sequence, the sentence takes on a very literal meaning!). The movie manages to successfully make us believe that we have guessed the surprise but then blindsides us with a nice twist.

The movie is quite implausible and has some glaring loopholes. But both these are evident only after the end credits roll. It keeps us engrossed(and in a few scenes, en-grossed out!) as long its running and any movie that manages to do that gets a thumbs up from me.