Saw X (2023 film)

Category: Torture/gore horror drama

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In the latest (but apparently not the last) instalment of this nearly 20-year old franchise, Tobin Bell and Shawnee Smith team up again to help bad guys realise the errors of their ways via the inappropriate use of medical equipment in Saw X.

And while there is only so much wriggle room to come up with new material in a franchise with an already-established canon, I will say this entry is by no means the worst - and actually has some outstanding qualities.

The biggest plus is that Saw X is quite well written and paced - so much so that Saw X could well have been its own standalone film - there was a real refreshing feel about this movie. Or, conversely, if Saw X had been made before the other instalments (because why not make the 10th movie in the series and have it take place between the first two), it would at least have allowed for a better plot progression for the subsequent entries in the series. I wrote in my combined reviews for Saw 3 and Saw 5 that the only thing more convoluted than the traps was the plot, and that was because in those films we got this contrived back and forth between people with a mysterious connection, a corrupt FBI agent in a pool of stupid law enforcement officers, and a man attempting to extol the virtue of life while committing murder. Whereas here, the traps are convoluted, sure, but the plot is relatively straightforward and able to be understood.

Allow me to briefly run down the plot:

John Kramer gets the prognosis about his brain tumour and is told he only has months to live. While in a support group for people with terminal illnesses, he befriends a man who eventually claims that he was successfully treated by Dr. Finn Pederson who has now passed his methods down to his daughter, Cecilia Pederson, who is carrying on with revolutionary cancer treatment, but needs to stay low to avoid the wrath of Big Medicine. This includes treating people in a dingy warehouse in an out-of-the-way area of Mexico, where Kramer travels for his surgery.

Post-surgery, Kramer eventually twigs that the whole operation was a scam whereupon he sets about getting his revenge by having the people involved in the 'operation' kidnapped and having to take drastic (and very gory) decisions to save their lives.

However, the tables get turned on Kramer when Pederson's husband turns up to assist his wife and forces a young boy that Kramer has taken a liking to to take part in a trap of Kramer's making.

Surviving that trap, Kramer and Amanda turn the tables yet again and get the last laugh as Pederson grabs what she thinks is a big bag of cash, but instead triggers a release of gas that only Pederson or her husband can survive.

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The thing I liked best about Saw X is that because the first half of the movie is more or less a human drama (with only one scene of torture) it allowed Tobin Bell to showcase his ability as an actor through the struggle of John Kramer - we see Kramer is vulnerable, desperate, hopeful, kind and thoughtful. It's only after he's crossed and dudded that he takes on the avenger role, which is what the second-half of the movie is about.

The other thing I thought was awesome was having an antagonist that is just as smart as John Kramer, and just a bit more ruthless - I really liked the Cecilia Pederson character, though I thought some of the evil villain speech stuff went on a bit too far at times. It was interesting seeing John Kramer vulnerable and having to think his way out of a trap of his own making - I wish we saw more of this in the later Saw movies, rather than the untouchable and impenetrable near-supervillain we ended up getting. In fact, if Saw canon wasn't already established, I would absolutely pay to see a spin-off series of movies between Kramer and Pederson where Pederson survives and looks to take revenge on Kramer in her own way.

Having said all that, I also need to highlight a few things I found that put me off.

I know this is a piece of fiction, but there's only so much deus ex machina one can handle before a work of fiction stops being relatable and starts to become ridiculous (which admittedly is also something that adds to the franchise). One example that comes to mind is Kramer surviving the trap that simulates drowning right near the end of the movie - viewers are expected to believe that a frail and barely-standing man verging ever so closer to death somehow survives being placed upside-down on a 45-degree incline as his mouth and nose are continually bombarded with thick fluid for an extended period of time without even falling unconscious. And then he just gets up afterwards like he had just been dunked in a pool.

Another is the idea John Kramer, now essentially broke and close to death, somehow has the time, energy, resources and finances to be able to retrofit a factory, rejig all the leftover working medical equipment, procure his own medical equipment to supplement his stash, as well as booby-trapping the factory, all while he's in a foreign country whose language he can barely speak? 

And what's with the kid playing soccer against the wall so late at night (presumably)? That seemed a bit arbitrary, as if the plot needed something to add tension, rather than a dramatic though natural happenstance. 

If I were in charge of the script, what would I liked to have made different?

Probably the biggest change I would make is to remove (or at least greatly extend) the time limits on at least some of the traps. I know that the time limit is there to add a sense of panic to the occasion (as well as make the movie move faster), but if the reason for the trap is to test a person's will to live, then let them take as much time as they need. Let's see the characters really stew over the decisions they need to make, because this is actually what maked the first Saw film work well - the struggle between the two men to work out what's going on, rather than just continual scenes of blood and gore. In hindsight, the time limitations really do come across as arbitrary and mean-spirited, thereby turning Kramer into a murderer in a hurry, rather than a pragmatically unorthodox teacher.

An explanation of where Kramer gets his psychotic murderous tendencies from, as well as those of Amanda and (to a lesser extent) Hoffman, would have been handy. These are never explained, and I think up to now, I don't think ever have been. 

I know that some people in Mexico can speak English, but what I would have liked to have seen is a lot more Spanish dialogue between the Mexican people in the traps when they're trying to get out - in a life and death situation, you need to not waste time trying to think of what to say in another language, especially when you have native speakers of your mother tongue in the same room as you. It's like if you were in Australia and were kidnapped by Brazilians, you're not suddenly going to communicate in Portuguese when there are native English speakers around you!

I'd probably also tidy up the script - I don't know if these were flubs, or the Kramer character playing fast and loose, but there were a couple of things that didn't line up. Here are some examples:

The first that comes to mind is when Kramer says "this isn't retribution", when in reality, that's exactly what it is - if his motives were about bad deeds in general, well, Kramer is in Mexico, a country gripped by a drug war - there's PLENTY of bad guys to pick! And why not also target the guy who tried to rape Valentina or the guys who played the henchment on the way to the facility? This puts his statement "this isn't about retribution" in a somewhat false light. 

In Valentina's trap, Valentina successfully completes the requirement of the challenge, but because of the slowness of the mechanism that deactivates the trap, the challenge isn't completed it in time. Afterwards, Kramer says that she "didn't have the will to live" - which is patently false because she actually did perform the required task, indicating she had the will to live. And it's not like Kramer can't deactivate a trap - unless he's both a poor engineer as well as a poor moral arbiter.

Kramer's capriciousness is further shown in Gabriela's trap where she is suspended from the ceiling by shackles on her wrist and ankle in the direct beam of a ionising heat gun. Gabriela gets out of the shackle on her ankle, allowing her to swing out of the way of the heat gun, only for the heat-gun to move over to her new location and start cooking her again.

Plot discrepancies aside, Saw X really is a film of two halves - the first half is an emotional drama about a man seeking treatment for terminal cancer, and as a human story, it works great. I was really drawn into it, and I think this is part of what makes this Saw quite highly-rated by the critics - it doesn't rely on torture and blood splatter, and in this aspect, Tobin Bell's performance is not quite Oscar-worthy, but you couldn't imagine anyone else ever filling his shoes.

And it is refreshing to see that this Saw movie ending on a positive note, rather than the sour and depressing notes that all the other ones have ended on.

STAR RATING: 3.75/5