"To be able to sustain such a traumatic experience, and yet find the positive in that grizzly act, it's a remarkable feat indeed. Remarkable, if not a little perverse."
--Doctor Lawrence Gordon, Saw: The Final Chapter
"You know, history is a passion for me. And in ancient Egypt if you were speaking under oath, you were required to say, 'If I'm lying, take me to the quarries.' That mean anything to you?"
--John Kramer (Jigsaw), Saw: The Final Chapter
At last, I've finished my review of the Saw movies leading up to Jigsaw. Well, the seventh Saw movie simply doesn't match or exceed the quality of the sixth--or the earlier ones (besides the first in some ways). It's unfortunate that the series had to go from one of its best offerings to the worst. The theatrical trailer included on the DVD for Saw: The Final Chapter says that "Every master craftsman and all true geniuses always save their best for last" and the back of the case cover says that viewers will "Witness the last diabolical act of a legend as the final pieces of Jigsaw's puzzle are revealed", but both of these promises majorly fail to deliver. Jigsaw barely has anything to do with the events in this movie, and the film has an incoherent script and horrendous effects. Movies 2-6, and even the first one, are far better in practically all categories.
Production Values
So some of the practical effects in this film are not exceptional and are quite poor in quality. The blood often appears to have a very abnormal purple color and doesn't resemble actual blood at all, and this really reduces the realism of various scenes. That this is the most graphic Saw movie does not mix well with the pathetic effects, as the impact of the gore relies heavily on the effects, which did not successfully bring the world onscreen to life.
As for the acting, Saw: The Final Chapter has some excellent and some terrible performances. Sean Patrick Flannery was great in his role, and his acting is one of the highlights of the early scenes he appears in. Of course, Tobin Bell expertly portrays John Kramer, the serial killer known as Jigsaw, but he is relegated to only two flashback scenes (if I remember correctly). His very sparse and brief appearances diminish the presence of the man the series is built on--only twice do the filmmakers insert him into the story, and each of these scenes, though fantastic, ends almost as soon as it commences. Carrie Elwes makes the most of his scenes as well, although he too is also only present in a small handful of scenes. Some of the supporting characters, like a police affiliate named Matt Gibson, utter hilariously ineffective lines in a very apathetic, unrealistic way.
The deep dialogue of the preceding films is almost completely absent. Saw VII and Saw VIII were reportedly combined into one script, which likely explains the rushed nature and condensed feel of many scenes. The script and structure of the film suffer from the worst dead end plot points and crap lines of the series. What happens to the main subject of the games, Bobby Dagen? How much time passed between the general events of the sixth and seventh movies? How did Hoffman set up traps that seem to require medical expertise beyond anything he has been shown to possess (the fishhook trap seems impossible to even set up without opening up a person's throat and chest, which did not seem to have happened)? How did a certain returning character pull off his work without others becoming aware of him? The plot isn't always explained. In fact, much of it isn't, whereas the other movies often revealed great amounts of specific detail.
The soundtrack is one of the better-executed parts of Saw: The Final Chapter, with some very context-fitting tracks arriving especially towards the end. Charlie Clouser's track The Final Zepp brings exactly what the track needed in order for both the music and the iconic location of the final scene to optimally honor the first Saw.
Story
(SPOILERS)
The movie opens with the series' first public trap, which results in the death of a young woman who was suspended above a rotating saw blade. The time and location of this trap are never disclosed, and, typical of the way this movie handles some scenes, the trap holds no direct significance for later events.
Mark Hoffman, working as a detective and as the heir to Jigsaw's work, escapes the reverse bear trap placed on him by Jill, Jigsaw's former wife, at the end of Saw VI. He begins hunting Jill, who places herself in the protection of the police in exchange for surrendering information about Hoffman's operations. During an (I think) unspecified amount of time after this, Hoffman continues John's legacy by carrying out more games. Eventually he targets a man named Bobby Dagen, who has obtained renown by writing a book about how he escaped a Jigsaw trap--and about how his life was transformed because of the experience.
Once Bobby, his wife, and some of his friends and PR assistants are abducted by Hoffman, Bobby's first tape reveals that he lied about being tested by Jigsaw in order to amass a fortune and publicity. His wife never knew about this, though. And she will die in 90 minutes if he does not reach her and complete a task. One by one, Bobby fails to free his companions, with each dying as a result of his failures.
Meanwhile, Hoffman leaves a series of clues that, deciphered correctly, will allow for the police and SWAT to find him. Many officers involved in the pursuit die, with Hoffman himself entering a police safe house to kill Jill, killing anyone between him and her. After finding her, he kills her using a reverse bear trap. Bobby Dagen, though, survives his game even though he fails to free anyone at all, even his wife. What happens to him is never shown.
Hoffman attempts to flee the unnamed city in the aftermath of the game and his murder spree--but a trio of people in Pigface costumes ambush him and inject him with a drug that quickly renders him unconscious. But before he drifts away, one of the attackers removes his mask, and the face of Doctor Gordon, the man who cut off his own foot in the bathroom game from the first Saw, is underneath. A montage during this scene reveals how Doctor Gordon enabled events in the second, third, and fourth movies and how his presence demystifies previously unexplained events in the fifth and sixth entries, with the film ending as Gordon seals Hoffman in the bathroom from the first movie.
Intellectual Content
I've explored at length the philosophy of Jigsaw in my reviews of other Saw movies, so I am not going to revisit the exact same material addressed previously.
I find Hoffman's character fascinating. Hoffman exemplifies the person who adopts an ideology after it is codified but then twists the original message for his own designs. He is to Jigsaw's worldview what a heretic is to Christianity or any other respective religion: the person who misuses a belief system (according to the system's internal standards) to impose his/her desires on others, not out of actual allegiance to the ideals of its founder. He never cared about rehabilitating or reforming people. As evidenced by events like when he displayed his apathetic behavior towards Timothy before placing him on the rack in Saw VI, he wanted to torture and kill people out of sadism, whereas John wanted to challenge and transform them. The extent of Hoffman's commitment to Jigsaw's actual beliefs is dubious at best, in many ways. Neither Hoffman nor Kramer, though, has any actual basis for their moral claims, with both operating on their subjective preferences derived from contradictory pangs of conscience. Neither, of course, has control of the Jigsaw legacy by the time that the final scene occurs.
Also, though the comparative absence of Jigsaw means that the philosophical dimension to the games is not present to the same extent as before--after all, Hoffman is not what John Kramer wanted--Saw: The Final Chapter showcases a noteworthy series trend. Trap survivors dispute the alleged positive life changes their experiences have brought them--and yet, throughout the series, many of those who survive traps become apprentices. Amanda, Doctor Gordon, and Hoffman (his "trap" was just talking to Jigsaw without moving in a way that triggered a shotgun "blast") each devote themselves to Jigsaw's work despite being victims of it. This means that many trap survivors seem to be conditioned or blackmailed into continuing the games as a successor to Jigsaw.
Sometimes abuse can produce more abusers, though this is not inevitably the case. This was one of the aspects to the series lore that intrigues me the most as it unfolds across the first seven movies. Despite eventually reaching very different methodologies (inescapable traps, sadism) or conclusions (that nobody actually can be reborn through near death experiences because nobody changes), the apprentices discussed and shown in this seventh installment mostly were converted to John's ideology after being put in traps. It is as if few impacted by the work of Jigsaw can resist the new allure of his teachings.
Conclusion
Saw: The Final Chapter didn't succeed in every way it needed to, with a rushed story, bizarre blood effects, laughable acting on some fronts, an unresolved plot with Bobby Dagen, and a severe deficit of both Jigsaw appearances and further elaboration about Jigsaw's plans. However, it does showcase a multitude of traps and it triumphantly returns Dr. Gordon to the series in spectacular fashion while offering a final scene that fittingly "concluded" the franchise. Without concretely terminating the possibility of a continuing story, of course.
The sequel Jigsaw was a much more competent movie. But I'll save words about that film for another time.
Content
1. Violence: This is easily the most graphic of the seven Saw movies. People are dismembered and brutalized onscreen, as opposed to what is shown in some of the previous films. For instance, a reverse bear trap is shown activating on a live person for the first time.
2. Profanity: The profanity seemed to not be distributed as evenly throughout as in the preceding films, but instead was condensed into a handful of particular scenes. However, within these scenes in question characters may use certain words numerous times.
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