New U.S. Release

Saw VI

By ROB NELSON

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'Saw VI'

A Lionsgate release of a Twisted Pictures presentation of a Burg/Koules/Hoffman production. Produced by Greg Hoffman, Oren Koules, Mark Burg. Executive producers, Daniel Jason Heffner, James Wan, Leigh Wannell, Stacey Testro, Peter Block, Jason Constantine. Co-producer, Troy Begnaud. Directed by Kevin Greutert. Screenplay, Patrick Melton, Marcus Dunstan.
 
Jigsaw/John - Tobin Bell
Hoffman - Costas Mandylor
Jill - Betsy Russell
Erickson - Mark Rolston
William - Peter Outerbridge
Amanda - Shawnee Smith
Agent Perez - Athena Karkanis
Pamela Jenkins - Samantha Lemole
Debbie - Caroline Cave
Harold - George Newbern
Simone - Tanedra Howard
 

Squeezing another pint of blood from its torture-porn corpus, Lionsgate slays again with "Saw VI," a film so frighteningly familiar it could well be called "Saw It Already." At least the requisite moralism is more playful than pious in this edition, whose grotesque punishments extend even to a man guilty of (horrors!) cigarette smoking. Serial not only in terms of killing, the "Saw" franchise has essentially become a gory soap opera, its die-hard viewership addicted to following the entangled narrative viscera of Jill (Betsy Russell), Det. Lt. Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) and, of course, Jigsaw (Tobin Bell).

Deceased since "III" but still calling the shots from beyond the grave, the diabolically vengeful Jigsaw, aka John, is given an added grudge in "VI," as flashbacks show he was threatened with the cancellation of his health insurance. (Not even mass murderers are immune to HMOs.)

That explains the viciously elaborate series of traps set for Umbrella Health executive William (Peter Outerbridge), who's forced to feel the gravity of choosing one patient's life over another's. The pic's most memorably gruesome contraption is a spinning carousel with half a dozen of the executive's colleagues on it; of those, only two are permitted to escape death by shotgun blast.

Other arguably deserving victims in this most topical of "Saw" sequels include a pair of predatory lenders forced to sever their own body parts and weigh them on a scale. As crudely fixated on ultraviolent vigilante justice as anything in the series (the proverbial "pound of flesh" is made literal here), this sequence begins the movie on an aptly torturous note.

Key revelations in "VI" include the contents of the box Jigsaw willed to his widow, Jill -- who, in an obvious lead-in to the seventh installment, appears to be vying with Hoffman for the right to carry out the dead killer's sick bidding from here. Meantime, Hoffman's attempt to pin all post-Jigsaw murders on the late Peter Strahm -- crushed to death in a giant trash compactor at the end of "V" -- isn't working for the newly healed and still-vigilant Agent Perez (Athena Karkanis).

As Jigsaw's kindred victim-turned-vindicator, Mandylor has significantly less screen time than he did in the talky "V," which benefits the new movie considerably. Flashbacks allow Shawnee Smith to reprise her role as Jigsaw accomplice Amanda, but the new performance is a cut below her surgical work in "III."

Russell doesn't do much but prepare to accept a larger part in "VII." Bell might appear to be tiring of Jigsaw, though it's hard to tell, since the film's flashbacks center on the psycho's cancerous final days.

Presumably owing to director Kevin Greutert's work as editor of all five previous "Saw" pics, the film's juggling of chronology is the franchise's best -- "downright slick," as Jigsaw would say.

Still, whatever technical improvements "Saw VI" makes on earlier entries can only be seen as marginal in the context of a series that remains as revolting as its fans would seem to insist.

Camera (Deluxe color), David A. Armstrong; editor, Andrew Coutis; music, Charlie Clouser; production designer, Tony Ianni; art director, Elis Lam; set decorator, Liesl Deslauriers; costume designer, Alex Kavanaugh; sound (Dolby Digital/SDDS/DTS), Erika Schengili-Roberts; supervising sound editors, Mark Gingras, John Laing; re-recording mixers, Keith Elliot, Andrew Tay, Mark Zsifkovits; special effects supervisor, Rob Sanderson; visual effects supervisor, Jon Campfens; visual effects, Switch VFX; prosthetics, Francois Dagenais; stunt coordinator, Shelley Cook; assistant director, Steve Webb; casting, Stephanie Gorin. Reviewed at AMC Southdale 16, Edina, Minn., Oct. 23, 2009. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 90 MIN.