Saw 6 (2009)

“Saw 6” feels like an unneeded movie except for the fact that the current set of writers have left so many loose ends strewn about (purposely done so they can ensure future sequels) that they had to make it in order to please the core fan-base. There are as many flashback scenes as there are those that are set in the present; this makes the film as difficult to review as the previous installment.

What this film does succeed in is the series of tests that affect almost the entire insurance agency that denied John Kramer, aka The Jigsaw Killer, a chance to undergo radical new treatment for his brain cancer. I love the concept that the victims are associated with one man, their boss, who was personally involved with John while he was alive; the victims in the previous film had nothing to do with John or Detective Hoffman but were suspects on Agent Strahm’s list during his investigation into the building fire. Now how did Detective Hoffman know that Detective Kerry had contacted Agent Strahm and Perez? He didn’t, so this is pretty sloppy. But there is a down side to this series of tests.  These “games” have more survivors than any other “Saw” film and it boggles the logical mind as to how ONE man was able to kidnap and set the traps up for so many people. But the writers have all of the flashbacks and cover-ups to worry about, so it’s something I think that want us to overlook as well.

William, the head of his department at the insurance agency, is the person directly responsible for declining coverage for John to take the radical medical treatment. He is then forced to play a series of “games” that involve the different people at his agency. While William is going through his tests, a mother and son are watching him advance by a monitor, trapped in a holding cell with a clock counting down.

The first “game” is between William and the janitor. The trap is set so that every time you take a breath, a vice crushes your body a little each time until your dead. The only way to survive is to breathe in less than the other victim and wait until they are killed. The janitor was a lifelong smoker and quickly fails the test.

The second “game” forces William to decide who should live and who should die. Jigsaw throws William’s logic about who should receive medical coverage back in his face with this game, making William choose between an older woman with a family history of diabetes but has a family or a young healthy file clerk whose death no one would notice. William struggles with the choice but finally chooses to save his secretary. He gets to remove another bomb from his limbs and move onto the next “game”.

In the third “game”, William’s lawyer has a device that will go off in 90 seconds and when it does, a spike will impale her brain. All she needs to do is get to the key, making her way through various pipes and columns of burning steam. William can help her by turning on valves that will burn him instead. She makes it through the maze but finds out that the key has been sewn inside William. She comes at him with a saw and ends up dying when the clock runs out.

The fourth game involves William’s team who goes through the applications looking for who they should reject or accept. There are six team members and four shots in a shotgun. He must choose which two get to live as they sit tied on a spinning carousel.

The last test in the series isn’t for William to play but for the mother and son. Their husband/father was one of the many people who were denied directly by William. The son chooses to kill William, pulling a lever that causes William to be impaled with needles that inject him with acid.

The movie opens up with a “game” for two players. There are accused of being predatory lenders, so now they must sacrifice their own flesh to survive. The person who cuts off the most wins while the other has a set of screws drilled into their heads via a device that they are both wearing. The winner cuts off her arm at the elbow while the man tried to trim the fat around his stomach. This is perhaps the most gruesome “game” visually in the series.

One sup-plot in the film follows the flashbacks of when John was alive and how he ultimately got Jill to go along with his plans. The most convincing evidence John provides is showing that his method “changed” Amanda, a heroin addict that Jill considered to be a “loss cause”.  It also shows that Amanda is the one who encouraged and made Cecil rob the clinic, making her an accomplice in the death of John’s unborn son.

Another sup-plot of the film includes the scenes about the clues that the FBI has to figure out who the real Jigsaw accomplice is, clues that Detective Hoffman was unaware of. These include the kind of knife that he used to cut out the jigsaw shape piece of flesh from his first killing, Seth Baxter, and the victim from the first “game” in this film. The next clue they find is a different voice pattern on the tape cassette that was found at Seth Baxter’s crime scene. Detective Hoffman goes with Agent Erickson and Agent Perez, who survived the Billy doll’s shotgun attack. He kills the two as well as a technician when they realize that it’s his voice.

The third and final sup-plot is the mystery contents that John left for Jill. Inside were six profiles of the people that John considered loose ends, including William, William’s sister, and the mother and son. Detective Hoffman takes the five known profiles and gets to work while Jill keeps the sixth a secret. The big reveal at the end is that Detective Hoffman is the sixth and final loose end, and Jill manages to take Hoffman by surprise. While he is unconscious, Jill attaches a new reversible bear trap (the kind that was first used on Amanda in “Saw”). He wakes up in time and lodges the trap between two bars. When the trap goes off, it merely rips apart some of his face, but he is alive and ready to extract his revenge.