Review of Saw IV (2007) by Kyle C — 13 Jun 2015

Saw IV follows Lieutenant Daniel Rigg as he is put through several tests rigged by Jigsaw, designed to get Rigg to see what Jigsaw himself sees in the people he tests, while at the same time, Agents Strahm and Perez try to figure out Jigsaw's game before it becomes too late.

Saw IV is a enigma, to me. The storyline that is told by Betsy Russell, as Jill Tuck, John Kramer's wife, is very interesting and easily the best part of the film. Rigg's test is not as interesting and is probably the worst part, as most of it is boring and not as intriguing as other parts of the film. The agents's story is so-so. It's kind of interesting, and does help give way to the Jill Tuck part of the story, but it's a little flat, especially since we're being thrown new characters to follow so quickly.

As in previous installments, the acting is just fine. Tobin Bell does a great job as Jigsaw/John Kramer once again, and he is given a chance to show off his more emotional side due to the events that Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell) recalls. Speaking of Russell, she does a great job playing the conflicted Jill Tuck, torn between the two versions of her ex-husband that she knows. Scott Patterson and Athena Karkanis both do great jobs as Strahm and Perez, respectively. Costas Mandylor is also great as Mark Hoffman, especially because of what his character will mean in future films, as per the ending. Lyriq Bent does a great job, as he did in the previous two films, as Daniel Rigg, who has to play Jigsaw's deadly game. He turns in a very, very good performance, in my opinion.

The music is a little more sub-par, especially compared to the music I liked so much in the previous film, but that's not to say the music has gotten any worse. It's still the same great music as before, it just didn't wow me as much as it did before. The visual effects (or aka the gore and stuff) were surprisingly toned down. About 1/2 of this movie has nothing to do with blood, guts, or gore, and I was shocked. I mean, of course, it was better, but I'm just shocked because the selling point of most of these movies is that there's a lot of gore and stuff.

As I said earlier, the storyline was a bit messier than in previous installments, but also just some of the characters were flat-out uninteresting. Rigg was a pretty decent character in II and III, but that was because he was a background character, he wasn't a major player. Shining the spotlight on him and his uninteresting story really didn't do the film any favors. If the story had been focused on another character in the police force, or if maybe the film had been told from the perspective of the detectives, it could have been fine, but since Rigg was always there, it didn't really make me be anymore interested in the film.

Overall, Saw IV is a mess. The storylines vary from intriguing to flat-out boring, and the characters seem to be a whole lot less interesting than I remember them being. Still, the acting, music, effects, and script all still work, but this is definitely a bigger step down that I had expected from this series. If the series doesn't get it's act together soon, it may just end up being a lot worse than I expected it to be. We're at the halfway point in the series, guys. Do they get better or worse?

Grade: C+.