Saw
 Rufus and Scraps  rates it:    Community rates it: (no ratings yet)
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The Bums team combined forces to take on this Hollywood juggernaught. Here's a brief synopsis of the post-movie meeting:

Rufus: I’d like to start with the previews. Was it me, or did we see one long preview. Every movie looked exactly the same. If this is a sign for what’s to come than this reviewing dig is going to start to get painful.

Scraps: I'll have to agree with you there. I'll get more into it in the full review, but whomever had the brilliant idea of the future of horror films is that damned shaking camera should be beaten to death with a sock full of wood screws.

Since we're taking a moment before the meat of the review, I'd like to speak to the movie viewing public. If a film starts at X time, get your ass in the theater before then! To the guy that showed up late and decided that the back of my seat was a great place to pound your workboot back onto your foot, be glad that Rufus was springing for the beer and I was in a mellow mood. Otherwise, you'd still be fishing your boot out of your throat right now.

Ah, I feel better now, thanks. We now return to our regularly scheduled review.

I am all for hyping a movie. I was genuinely excited to see this movie. Some of the reviews I had read compared it to "Seven" and "Silence of the Lambs", both of which I love.

Well, to be fair, there were some similarities to these classics:
Seven: They both had black cops
Seven: They both had overweight dead guys
Seven: There was a twist at the end that I didn't expect
Silence of the Lambs: They both were in theaters

There are a few things that I like to see in movies, not just horror movies, but movies in general that Saw lacked:

Character development: Apparently there was a lot going on to the characters that I didn't see. And, I never did figure out if I was supposed to feel compassionate towards Lawrence. I mean, the guy was kind of a prick, and Jigsaw should have put the damned chain around his neck instead of his leg.

Tension: If your going to base the premise of the movie on completing a certain event in a certain amount of time, make TIME more important in the story. The doctor had roughly eight hours to save his family, yet he spent most of the time in these great elaborate flashbacks. Only when he had 20 minutes left did we see any panic in the guy. If he's cool with some psycho shooting his wife and kid, who am I to get all worked up about it?

Rufus: I feel you on that. We gotta throw some spoilers in this. I mean, without that we cannot properly warn our fellow Bums of the atrocity which is Saw.

*** Spoiler Rampant Warning ***

There we go. That should do it. I guess we should give a slight synopsis of the film. Two men wake up in a bathroom chained to pipes. No, this isn't a weekend with George Michaels. They do not know how they got there. Lawrence (Cary Elwes) has an idea of who put him in this situation. Now for 2 hours of flashback. Well that sums it about up on the basis of the movie. Got anything to add Scraps?

Scraps: I would like to add my version of how the pitch meeting went:
Guy who wrote this: Here's the idea, we have about 4 minutes of pretty cool ideas, like a guy in a mask riding a tricycle, and some of those cool shots with a camera spinning around a stationary object and we speed up the film and make it all jittery. We'd like to turn it into a two hour horror film. It's all artsy and dark and it's got "indie" written all over it! I mean come on, a guy gets poop on his hand. Poop! Plus, it's got one of those shocker endings that no one would expect, probably because we don't DEVELOP THE CHARACTERS!!
Guy from LGF: Someone hand me my checkbook and wake up Danny Glover, we've got a hit on our hands!!!

I do have one nice thing to say about it, and that's the use of lighting. In most films, when it's supposed to be a dark room, it's like the full moon is three friggin feet from a picture window and the lighting is all blue, to signify darkness. There are a few scenes in "Saw" that take place in dark rooms, and brother let me tell you, I truly did get the feeling that I was in a DARK room! Scary dark? Hell no. More like "I'd better slow down or I'll jam my little toe on the corner of a table" dark.

I'd rather watch Dr. Giggles on a TV with rabbit ears and a blown speaker than sit through this again.

Rufus: Oh, Dr. Giggles! My “Nerd-Ar” is going off. Now that is a fun movie. I will agree with you about the darkness of some scenes. You sit there in the theater, and seeing the same thing the actor on the screen is seeing- absolutely nothing. Now that you mentioned him let's talk about Danny Glover. He has to be the most worthless character in this whole movie. He's a cop. Ok. Great! Quite a stretch for Glover there. His character had so many chances to kill the "killer". Even after he goes solo, (watch the movie), he tosses the gun aside to "wrastle" the killer. I truly believe that this was a quick rewrite due to the movie being too short. Director: "Ok Glover, stall. We need to get another 20 minutes out of this." It was laughable how every attempt to be heroic was swatted down. I still laugh just thinking about some of the scenes. His character reminded me of holding back a midget with my stretched out arm on his head, while he flays wildly trying to hit me. Do you see that image in your head? Good, because that is the perfect representation of Danny Glover in this movie. Poor guy. Overall I was very disappointed in with this movie. I was expecting soooo much more than what I got. This is a movie that was more straight to cable, than the next great thing in horror like it was said to be. Was it awful? No it was not awful. But this movie was like a saltine cracker. Little specks of good salty scenes, but over all just bland. So what was your final verdict on this One Scraps? Was it as scary as everyone had said to you?

Scraps: Honestly, I was really hoping that I'd at least get a couple good
scares out of it, but it wasn't happening.

Definitely some interesting situations that this bed-ridden cancer patient can whip up, but not scary in the least (for a dude in the hospital on monitors and crap, he sure does get around). I'd call it a suspense thriller, but it was neither suspenseful nor thrilling. It's more like a film that can't decide whether to be artsy or mainstream and ends up diluted with the worst aspects of each.

It's a good way to kill a couple hours once it hits the HBO circuit, but keep your cash fellow Bums, our new T shirts will be available in a few weeks, and they're more exciting than this fodder!

Rufus in a box:
Biggest reason to watch: Danny Glover making an ass of himself, by starring in this movie
Worst aspect of the movie: Naked fat man, and just about everything else
Better than: ....Huh....Oh, I'm sorry.....
Not as good as: Everything that it has been compared to
2 trashcans out of 5

Scraps in a box:
Biggest reason to watch: so you have something to bitch about at Thanksgiving
Worst aspect of the movie: 2 hours? 2 freekin' hours? Are you kidding me?
Better than: That one anti-drug movie from grade school where the chick thinks the flame on the stove is a flower and grabs it. Ouch.
Not as good as: Um, did you read the review AT ALL? You wanna good "artsy" horror film, go rent Blair Witch
2 trashcans out of 5

Added:  Saturday, April 09, 2005
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