Seriously, I don't know who thought it would be a good idea to put all the cops into one movie and have them do cop things for two hours, but I hate them for it. If you couldn't already tell, this is my least favorite entry in the Saw series. Why? Well, let's just take a look at the plot, or lack thereof. By the way, from now on, it is physically impossible for me to explain these movies without spoiling everything about them. That's just how these films work from 3 onwards. So here we go.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
So Jigsaw is dead. The film makes that obvious by showing his dead body being dissected and autopsied in the opening credits. Stupid Cop #3, aka Hoffman, finds a cassette in his body that says that maybe he can succeed where others have failed, which automatically gives away the fact that Hoffman is the new Jigsaw killer. Oh, sorry? You didn't want to know that yet? Well, maybe you shouldn't have looked at the section below the giant "spoilers ahead" line. Sorry, I'm legitimately angry while writing this review because I have to think about just how ridiculously stupid and unnecessary this movie is.
So, Hoffman and Rigg investigate the scene of Alison's death at the hands of one of the best traps ever in Saw 3. There, they meet Agent Strahm and Agent Perez. Strahm and Perez are your typical Saw cops, generic law-abiding goodie-goods who barely ever have anything interesting to say or contribute to the story. Strahm suggests that because of how the trap was set up, it would've been impossible for just Amanda to put Alison into it, which is pretty much like the movie screaming at you, "HEY LOOK! HOFFMAN IS THE NEW JIGSAW KILLER!".
Just in case his evil, serial killer-looking face doesn't already tip you off.
Rigg is then kidnapped and given the main plot, er, "his game" by Jigsaw. Also, Hoffman goes missing, which is basically the movie's way of saying, "Hey, Hoffman's the new Jigsaw killer. He totally just faked his own disappearance so the other cops wouldn't suspect him of anything. How are you not seeing this yet?" Here's how the game works: Jigsaw tells Rigg that Detective Matthews (who was assumed dead at the end of Saw 2) is still alive and he has 90 minutes to figure out the clues that lead him to Matthews so Rigg can save him before the trap that he's in goes off and actually kills him for real this time. These clues come in the form of traps that Rigg has to interact with in some sort of way. The big reveal near the end is that all of the traps had a letter G on them, which somehow makes Rigg come to the conclusion that he needs to go to an abandoned meat factory whose logo also features a letter G, but with the same font as the trap G's.
Seriously, that clue is just WAY too vague for him to legitimately come to that conclusion.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention (probably because it's so forgettable), while Rigg is doing his tests, Strahm and Perez are interrogating Jigsaw's ex-wife, Jill. This leads to some interesting backstory about how John Kramer became Jigsaw and even gives us the story of his first trap and victim. Strahm also comes to the conclusion that the final test has to be at the meat factory through an equally senseless way. Jill tells Strahm that she named her unborn son Gideon, which also happens to be the name of the meat factory. Just....just no. I'm getting tired. Let's move onto the climax, shall we?
In the meat factory, Rigg finds the final trap, which is waaaaay too complicated for me to explain here. It involves Hoffman, Matthews (who is actually alive), and some guy from the beginning of the movie who survived a different trap. If Rigg messes up, all three of them die, one by hanging, one by electrocution, and one by getting his head smashed by two swinging blocks of ice.
Free hat not included.
For some reason, Matthews has access to a gun and shoots at Rigg when he sees him walking outside of the window. *insert cop gunfight here* After a few shots are fired, the ice blocks smash Matthews' head, Rigg is shot in the stomach, and the guy from the beginning of the movie is dead by Rigg's bullet. Hoffman then does the big reveal when he released himself from the trap without a scratch, almost like he designed it to work like that. "DO YOU GET IT NOW?!" - Saw 4, to the audience. Hoffman leaves Rigg to bleed to death and goes further into the meat factory to discover Strahm and Jeff from Saw 3 fighting in the room that Jigsaw died in. Strahm kills Jeff and then is locked in the room to starve to death by Hoffman. Roll credits.
What Saw 4 made me want to do to my eyes after seeing it.
So yeah, Saw 3 and Saw 4 happen at the same time. Cool, let's never speak of this hideous abomination ever again.
SPOILERS CONCLUDED!
I found it really hard to like anything about this movie. The only acting that shines through is Costas Mandylor as Hoffman. Everybody else is extremely wooden and boring to watch. The plot was completely unnecessary and only exists to let everybody know that Hoffman is the new Jigsaw killer. The whole "mystery" aspect to Rigg's test doesn't make any sense at all and it doesn't seem like he was being taught a lesson. He never has to put himself in any immediate danger, and he isn't in a trap until the end of the movie, and the trap wasn't the thing that killed him, it was Matthews and his gun! This whole film is just all over the place. Jill explaining Jigsaw's past was pretty nice, but it all seemed unnecessary as well since John Kramer is dead.
The only decent part of the movie are the traps, which aren't really all that spectacular, except for the one at the end. The gore is once again stepped up, featuring people who aren't in traps getting killed. A guy slices up his face with knives and falls into a pit of razor wire, a guy gets his head smashed in with a hammer, a girl gets her scalp torn off, one of the detectives messes with a rigged clown puppet and she explodes, a guy gouges out his eye and then gets his limbs torn off, and finally, a crime scene photographer gets speared through the head by a misfiring trap. I could chalk the bad traps up to the fact that the Jigsaw killer isn't the same guy as in the first three movies, but I still say that the producers got lazy with this one.
So, in the end, Saw 4 receives 3 previous movies that completely overshadow this one out of a possible 10. I would say to skip it, but you really need to see all of these movie in order to properly understand what's happening behind all the traps and gore. This is my least favorite Saw film for one simple reason:
NOBODY CARES ABOUT THE FREAKING COPS!
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