Review of Saw VI (2009) by Al M — 12 Nov 2011

Saw VI was a surprising return to form for me--my favorite in the series since Saw III. Saw VI has imaginative traps and gut-wrenching torture (both emotional and physical) scenes as well as a message which had gotten somewhat muddled in the past two films with Jigsaw's minions taking the lead.

While the ultimate moral impact of Jigsaw's "murders" has devolved over the course of the films, particularly 3-5, Saw VI gives us a genuine object of critique again: the health insurance industry and, to a lesser degree, the banking corporations that supplied sub-prime mortgages.

Both of them are depicted as playing with people's lives in a manner that Saw VI makes astoundingly clear through its various traps and tortures. A riveting piece of brutality that elevates the series back up to its previous potential as a site of both social commentary and visceral experience.