Short Take: More contemporary than usual, while still unusual

Director: Kevin Greutert

Screenwriters: Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton (Saw IV, Saw V)

Cast: Tobin Bell (Saw), Costas Mandylor, Mark Rolston, Betsy Russell, Shawnee Smith

Length: 1h 30m

Synopsis: The maniacal Jigsaw (Bell) has long since been dead, but his “games” continue to be played. The next main target is a health insurance executive (Rolston) who has denied coverage to persons in need of it, resulting in their deaths. The man carrying on Jigsaw’s work, detective Hoffman (Mandylor), forces the exec to come to terms with what he’s done. The goal of his games remains the same as all the others: to test a person’s will to live.

Analysis: If the idea was arguable before, it has now become fairly conclusive – the Saw films have become an almost even mixture of horror and fantasy. Where some films attempt (either consciously or subconsciously) to make subtle social critiques, Saw VI makes no bones about what its cultural concerns are and what kind of “justice” ought to be carried out to deal with them. Fitting with contemporary American concerns, the topic at hand in the film is healthcare and its mismanaged, misguided, and (the film argues) overall immoral practices. What better way to vent frustrations with this issue than to witness the torture of a crooked health insurance exec whose job it is to grant or deny coverage to needy people?

One could claim that witnessing such events could prove cathartic for some people, and who is to say that’s not the case? However, one must also question what differences exist between exacting revenge and seeking poetic justice. What moral boundaries are tested when Jigsaw’s “games” are played? Must they be tested? And regarding Jigsaw’s faith in the human will to live, are his “games” viable measurements or tests of it? Is it possible to test someone’s will to live while simultaneously testing their level of compassion for human life? Due to the aspect of fantasy that the narrative utilizes we the audience are more so than ever sharing the same vantage point as Jigsaw. This fact forces the questions above to be asked and answered by us. And this leads to a strange question in itself: Are there any wrong answers?

One other big question arises that directly deals with the movie working partially as an act of fantasy is this: What separates a communal search for justice from multiple shared individual vendettas? As the Saw saga continues to lengthen, it becomes clear that those involved in Jigsaw’s “games” are only the ones involved with his life – either directly or indirectly (his doctor, his health insurance rep., the cops assigned to his case, the junkie who killed his child, etc.). Certainly not all of his victims are in some way tied to him (especially early on in the series), but the number of them who are is growing. This begs the question of whether Jigsaw’s motives, as they are revealing themselves, are too personal to be as virtuous as he claims them to be. Taking out society’s garbage, as it were, might be far nobler an act if much of that garbage wasn’t also his own. But does this even matter? Or, is this possibility a threat to Jigsaw insofar as it might reveal him to be hypocritical by way of not valuing the lives of people as much as he preaches for them to value each other? And if in the end he is judged to be a hypocrite, does this undo all of his “work”? Answering these questions, while worthwhile, can be exhausting, especially if one concludes that there isn’t enough material to answer some of them. But at least we can all rest assured that more material will arrive next Halloween.

Rating: 6.0