Twisted Pictures is releasing Saw films faster than you can say, “oh no, not again!”  I suppose I was looking forward to the timely release of the next Saw film (every Halloween) just as much as anyone, but I was also looking for perhaps a larger break between the third and fourth installments.  Either way, it’s exciting to see where a new batch of writers are willing to take a series and what kind of strings (literally) they are willing to pull in order to make the same old plot somehow feel fresh again.  The result is the fourth installment to a series of films that, thankfully, has not lost most of its touch over the years.  The actors are still returning, the traps are as diabolical as ever, and director Darren Lynn Bousman is once again outdoing himself in regards to his previous efforts with the same franchise.  However, something does go horribly wrong with Saw 4.  Throughout the entire film you can’t help but feel that you’ve been through all of this before, and when the film comes to its dramatic close, you’ll also find that the twists and turns no longer come with as much impact and surprise.

Saw 4 feels much more like an episode of CSI than any other film in the franchise.  Think crime drama with gore.  Its scenes primarily play out in a gritty police office while surviving members of jigsaws demotic plans are trying to find the missing members of the force.  It seems that Jigsaw sees that the entire police force does not know what saving a life actually means and that it is the person’s own duty to save themselves for what Jigsaw still sees as a life without appreciation.  This is a lesson that Rigg (Lyriq Bent returning once again)  is about to learn as the usual voice recordings of Jigsaw send him on a wild goose chase that is promised to lead him to Eric Mathews, who has been kidnapped since…well, Saw 2.   The result is Rigg, who feels the need to save everyone, stumbling across many ethical dilemmas that involve Jigsaw testing his will to bring justice to some of the worst kinds of sadistic trash that roam throughout the city.  One scene in particular has Rigg actually rigging (clever?) one of Jigsaw’s traps so that a rapist/murder can actually decide his own gruesome fate…live or die.  The result is actually one of Jigsaw’s most brutal traps to date.  Let’s just say it made one hell of a crime scene!

There is not much to say about Saw 4 that hasn’t already been said about the previous films in the series.  With all safety nets aside, Darren Lynn Bousman still entangles us in a nonstop ride of crime and punishment.  The action is still gritty, the traps are all genius, and the script, although this time written by the writers of Feast, is still subpar but fitting.  I did however find it to be a pleasant surprise that the acting talents of Costas Mandylor (Hoffman) and Lyriq Bent are taken up a notch to make some scenes, like the police interrogation of Jill, seem much more immediate and fulfilling to watch. 

Although Saw 4 does manage to expand Jigsaw’s world a bit further into the past as well as the future, it is still manages to come across as a bit tiring at times because the “horror” aspects of the film are nothing more than what we’ve already seen in previous installments.  Still, it’s wonderful to see these four films in much broader perspective so that we can further understand Jigsaw’s insanity.  With that said, Saw 4 does on wonderful job at taking us into Jigsaw’s past so that we are able to look at this installment as not just a separate film but as part of a continuous story.  So until next Halloween, I’m sure that message boards around the globe will be supplying you with plenty of rumors and eager insight toward the fifth film in the series, but if you’re anything like me, you can wait.  Until then, yes, Saw 4 delivers in every way that you’d expect it too.  A nice way to once again kick off the holiday season, but it’s almost like watching everyone at my apartment complex hurl their old pumpkins from the roof to watch them splatter on the sidewalk in all of their gooey glory: it’s a nice novelty for the season but, after the 2nd and 3rd pumpkin…well…I think I can contain my excitement. 

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