RECENT WATCHES: Fast & Furious (2009)

“The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” was still a box office success but it grossed one hundred million dollars less than its predecessor. Normally, this would simply mean the end of the series. In a Hollywood landscape more obsessed with on-going sagas than ever, Universal wasn't ready to give up. Instead, Vin Diesel would finally be talked into making a proper return to the role of Dom Torreto. This essentially made “Fast & Furious,” the fourth entry in the franchise, the first real sequel to the original. Justin Lin would be retained as director from “Tokyo Drift,” turning the car-centric franchise into a bigger, more international affair that more-or-less rebooted the series into a totally different type of blockbuster. 

Dom is up to his old tricks again, pulling off daring freeway heist with his gang in the Dominican Republic. After an especially dangerous stunt, he decides to go his separate ways from his long-time lover Letty. Shortly afterwards, she's seemingly killed, sending Dom on a roaring rampage of revenge. Meanwhile, re-instated FBI agent Brian O'Conner is on the trail of notorious drug lord, Braga. It's not long before Dom and Brian cross paths again, both ending up competing to become drivers for Braga. The two foes-turned-friends-turned-foes again must team-up to avenge Letty and take down the bad guy, on a quest that will take them all over North and Central America.

The change in priories represented by “Fast & Furious” is evident in one very big way: There's less focus on the cars. Oh, sure, there's still an extended race sequence and lots of vehicular mayhem. Driving cars fast is still the main characters' superpowers. The lack of lingering close-ups on shiny chrome and polished hubs shows that the fourth film was designed to be less of a car movie and more of a general action/adventure flick. You also see this in the story structure. Dom Toretto is centered in a standard revenge narrative, that sees him fighting off a drug cartel via punching, shooting, and explosions. The way Dom and Brian's adventure takes them all over Central America, in pursuit of a colorful bad guy, also can't help but be a little reminiscent of a James Bond flick. If the first three “Fast” flicks were somewhat trendy movies meant to capitalize on the early 2000's fascination with street racing, “Fast & Furious” clearly sought to push the franchise forward into a more generalized action movie direction. 

By this point in their careers, Vin Diesel and Paul Walker were much more established talents. With an extra seven years on the silver screen, both are more assured in their performances and on-screen personas. Walker's introductory scene has him chasing a perp through a building, before both go sailing out a window onto a parked vehicle. His shows that Brian O'Connor is a more grizzled, experienced agent by this point. The older, more stubbly Walker fits into that role well, following expanding the character pass his dude-bro roots. Vin, meanwhile, has gotten more monstrously jacked since the first film. This furthers his transformation into a superhuman action hero, who threatens to crush random goons with engine blocks and tosses bad guys through car doors. This sphere of Schwarzeneggerian excess is exactly where someone like Diesel excels. 

Fittingly, the action here goes from the merely preposterous to utterly cartoonish. The opening freeway heist has Dom and his team jacking a truck along a perilous mountain road, a reasonable event by this series' measure. It ends with Dom rocketing his car underneath a flaming tanker as it rolls down the hill. The level of CGI effects work necessary to pull off such an elevated stunt is high, lending a degree of unreality to events early on. It is a bit of a shock to go from the more grounded stunt work in “Tokyo Drift” to the Marvel movie style mayhem here. Probably the moment that best balances this push-and-pull between an ostensibly realistic setting and utterly absurd action is a street race midway through the film. There's some cool stunt driving, weaving in and out of traffic, and more than a few over-the-top wrecks. 

Honestly, I found myself wondering throughout “Fast & Furious” if this kind of elevated action suited the series, at least as it existed up to this point. I found myself missing the more practical stunt driving that was the highlights of the first and third films. Yet, by the time “Fast & Furious” reaches its climatic chase, I was won over by it. That particular sequence is a claustrophobic race through a series of underground tunnels along the Mexican border, which is tensely directed by Justin Lin. The tight surroundings and speeding cars causes the suspense to ratchet up and leads to a few inventive set pieces. The sequence then climaxes with a moment so supremely silly – I wasn't kidding when I said that fast cars were Dom's superpower now – that I couldn't help but love it. 

By moving the story outside the realm of street racing, “Fast & Furious” finally graduates this franchise from totally predictable half-assed scripts to more standard blockbuster screenwriting. This does not mean the film leaves the melodrama of the first three installments behind. By putting them on opposite sides of the law again, Dom and Brian's rivalry is still centered in the story, now with the extra layer of betrayal. This climaxes during a wonderfully ridiculous wrestling match between the two, during which Vin slams Walker through a pantry. Naturally, Diesel seeking revenge for his murdered wife is exactly the kind of macho fantasy movies like this cater too. That includes a gorgeous new woman throwing herself at him – a pre-”Wonder Woman” Gal Gadot – that he naturally rebuffs. For what it's worth, there is a semi-decent twist concerning who the actual villain is, which shows more thought was definitely put into this one.

It seems safe to consider “Fast & Furious” a transitional film for this particular series. From here, these movies would go further over-the-top, as opposed to the doofy but basically earth-bounded earlier entries. This naturally tracks with the “Fast” films morphing from nothing but car porn to bigger budget action-fests intended for a more general audience. There's definitely some bumps along the way but, by the end, I found myself on the same page as this ridiculous spectacle. [7/10]

RECENT WATCHES: Saw V (2008)

One of the taglines used to sell “Saw IV” was, simply, “If it's Halloween, then it must be Saw.” There's no doubt that part of what made the grisly series such a reliable box office presence in the 2000s was the yearly ritual of a new one being in theaters in time for Halloween every October. Horror fans loved having a new gore-fest to watch during their favorite holiday and I bet the average movie-goer appreciated it too, for a while anyway. To maintain that consistent schedule, Twisted Pictures was basically working on “Saw” non-stop. Melton and Dunstan envisioned part four launching a new story arc to run through the next two installments. Once the opening weekend numbers came in, it was full-speed ahead on “Saw V.” A script was locked by Christmas, with filming taking place through March and April, with the finished product ready to go by October. David Hackl, the production designer who almost helmed four, was now leading this bloody machine. At a certain point, however, the question must be asked: Does cranking a sequel out so quickly produce compelling results?

In the aftermath of Jigsaw's reign of terror, there are seemingly few survivors... Except for Detective Eric Hoffman, who is quickly praised as the hero who broke the case. This is all by design, as Hoffman was one of John Kramer's disciples and the man who will inherit the mantle of Jigsaw. The only person who suspects anything is FBI agent Strahm. He was supposed to die too but survived the trap he was placed in. He starts digging through Hoffman's past, discovering that the detective killed his sister's murderer and staged it to look like one of Jigsaw's "games." When John Kramer discovered this, he took Hoffman under his wing. As Strahm closes in on the new Jigsaw Killer, another game – involving five people connected by shady property deals – is playing out. 

Part of why Wan and Whannell's original "Saw" spawned so many sequels and imitators is because it presented an easily copied blueprint. Not only in its premise of gruesome torture games but also in its visual style. In his sequels, Darren Lynn Bousman did little to change the dank settings, gritty lighting, and frantic editing that the first film established. "Saw V" keeps the same cinematographer and editor that have stuck with the series from the beginning, so it features plenty of the trademark "Saw" ugliness. The expected jagged camera movements, "Jacob's Ladder" style freak-outs, and Nickelodeon slime lighting are all present and accounted for. However, David Mackl shows notably different influences than Wan and Bousman. "Saw V" opens with someone being cleaved in two by a swinging pendulum. One Edgar Allen Poe references deserves another, as the film ends with someone crushed between two advancing walls in a shrinking room. This suggest more of a gothic horror vibe, which is also evident in part five starting on a dark and stormy night. The underground tunnels and industrial warehouses are lit like dusty, dark castles and the blood is noticeably a brighter red than last time. I couldn't shake the feeling throughout that "Saw V" was going for some Hammer horror or Corman's Poe Cycle vibes. 

Embracing a more baroque fashion of horror like that than reheated "Seven" would've been a good way to keep "Saw" fresh this late into the series. Unfortunately, the fast-paced production cycle for this franchise resembled TV more than anything. Which is also what "Saw V" resembles. Not only in its flatly shot and presented scenes of cops and FBI agents lurking around stations and crime scenes either. Special Agent Strahm is more-or-less the hero of "Saw V," from the moment he saves himself from drowning via improvised tracheotomy. That causes Scott Patterson to put on an even gruffer voice than he did last time, making the already hard-boiled detective into more of a case-obsessed hard-ass. It's easy to imagine this same actor and character starring in some CBS cop show. Strahm has the same degree of depth that implies too, being a totally indistinct tough guy who exists to uncover all the clues that will reveal the story to the audience. 

This is because, like a serialized television story, "Saw V" is far too invested in its ongoing lore to make this installment stand alone. Jigsaw is the real protagonist of the "Saw" series anyway and Hoffman is our new Jigsaw. Much of the sequel is devoted to flashbacks, showing how and why Hoffman became John Kramer's other protégé and how he helped set up many of the traps from the first two movies. This allows Tobin Bell to remain present in the series, despite his character being dead by now. There's a problem however. Bell was already a veteran character actor before becoming a horror icon. He knew how to command the screen with a gravelly, Lance Henriksen-esque charisma. Hoffman is played Costas Mandylor, whose C.V. is, I guess, not any more or less distinguished than Bell's. However, his performance comes off as a lot more one-note. As incoherent as John Kramer's philosophy was, it was still something that made him different than the slashers and supervillains that came before. His games of torture were twisted tests of character, meant to show if his captives had a will to survive. Mark Hoffman, meanwhile, is your run-of-the-mill asshole vigilante. His victims include a Neo-Nazi, an asshole land developer, a rich junkie, a tabloid reporter, a low level government crony. The kind of people you won't mind seeing dismembered, continuing the antihero-ification of Jigsaw that started last time. Moreover, Kramer being driven by his cancer diagnosis and perverse desire to prove a willingness to live was interesting. It showed a bizarre world view, elaborated on through the previous film's backstory, and given life by Bell. Hoffman has none of that and the sequel never truly justifies why he is so eager to take up the Jigsaw mantle. Mandylor's performance, meanwhile, is grunting and sinister and gives us little in the way of any sort of inner life. 

"Saw V" is truly all about establishing the new central baddie for the series going forward. Dunstan and Melton's script uses the fanfiction-like device to make us think the new guy is important by inserting him into past events, to convince us he's been here all along. That means tying "Saw V" to the previous installments, leading to revisits of past traps and an almost amusing rundown of all the dead cops Jigsaw has left in his wake. (It also means completely brushing away the cliffhanger ending we've been waiting two movies to see resolved.) However, "Saw V" devoting so much time and energy to establishing its new killer presents a serious flaw: Aren't these movies supposed to be about normal people trapped in games of mutilation and execution? 

Jigsaw's latest "game," with all its bloody traps, is shoved into the subplot of the film. The group of people forced to play or die are all largely unlikable. Their story, a convoluted and totally off-screen tale of shady property deals, is uninvolving. The cast plays the gang as self-interested and melodramatic assholes. Considering the obvious attraction of these films are the gory death traps, those seem uninspired too. A system of pulleys yanking an unlucky loser into a guillotine blade is clever. However, the other tests feel like ultra-violent "Double Dare" challenges, concluding in unexciting dispatches like an explosion or electrocution. The intended goal of this game is to make all these selfish jerk-wads realize they need to forge meaningful connections with other people and put aside their greedy self-interest to survive. Considering the extremely cynical world-view of the "Saw" series, how this plays out should come as no surprise. 

If the biggest problem facing "Saw IV" was the series being consumed by its own continuity and need for plot twist, part five shows a similar self-absorption with the backstory of this gory crime saga. To the point that it has officially overtaken the bloody challenges as the primary focus. I guess that's better than wallowing in sadism and nihilism, though it's also a lot harder to care about. At least part five skips the timeline scrambling twist ending antics. In fact, "Saw V's" ending feels rather routine, a half-hearted promise that the story will continue in next year's installment and that Jigsaw's sick trials are far from over. I suppose the sequel gave fans what they wanted, as it was another reliable money maker for its producers. However, the feeling that extending this story past the original villain's death was maybe a fool's errand is starting to sink in. "Saw V" isn't totally without its moment, I guess. Bell is still doing a lot with a little and the opening and closing death scenes are grimly executed. However, the franchise doldrums are setting in. [5/10]

RECENT WATCHES: Saw IV (2007)

Jigsaw was dead. However, “Saw III” grossed 164 million dollars at the global box office, meaning “Saw: The Franchise” was very much alive. James Wan and Leigh Whannell were ready to hang up their bloody hacksaws, stepping into the roles of executive producers. Liongates set out to find a new writing duo to keep their yearly torture machine chugging along. A spec script by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan – the team behind Dimension's ill-fated “Feast” – was briefly considered as the blueprint for a “Saw” prequel. However, the decision was made to move forward, rather than backwards. Besides, what horror villain worth their salt hasn't come back from the dead? Thus, “Saw IV” was set in motion. Production designer for the last two films, David Hackl, was the first choice to direct but dropped out for personal reasons. Darren Lynn Bousman wasn't interested in directing at first, fearful of being pigeon-holed as a horror sequel guy, but they talked him into it. (Probably because he was trying to fund his weirdo passion project, “Repo! The Genetic Opera,” which Twisted Pictures ended up producing and Liongates distributed.) In many ways, as John Kramer himself would say, the games were only beginning. 

In the autopsy room, a cassette tape is pulled out of the stomach of the deceased John Kramer, promising that his plans will continue after his death. FBI agents Strahm and Perez are assigned to the case, quickly deducing that the sickly Kramer must have had multiple assistants helping set up his torture machines. Meanwhile, SWAT team leader Rigg – obsessing over the Jigsaw case since Detective Kerry's death – is drawn into a new game. He must complete tests that see him encountering criminal faces from his past. At the end of the trail, is Detective Matthews and forensic specialist Hoffman in a trap of their own. Strahm becomes increasingly convinced Riggs is the assistant they are seeking, on his trail in hopes of rescuing the captured Hoffman and Matthews. 

If any franchise runs long enough, it inevitably reaches a point where the story becomes consumed by its own mythology. You're going to get installments that reference previous installments, if they aren't built entirely around remaking them. Part four represents that turning point for "Saw," when the franchise disappeared up its own ass. You have to remember who the – not that distinctive, it must be said – various cops and detectives from the last two movies were to make sense of this one's story. The plot juggles several competing threads, all of which are playing out at the same time as each other... While also occurring alongside a number of flashbacks. That's before the last act twist, the utterly self-involved reveal that "Saw IV" is taking place at the same time as the events of "Saw III," the two films crashing into each other in their final minutes. Part three's ineffectual protagonist, Jeff, wanders into this sequel with the expectation that you'll immediately recognize him. This means that part four frustratingly does not resolve the previous film's cliffhanger. "Saw IV" is so wrapped up in its narrative trickery and dependency on continuity, that the eventual reveal of John Kramer's true heir comes off more as a shrug than a perfectly executed surprise. 

Honestly, it's a lot to ask of the audience for films that aren't much more than especially nasty, elaborate slasher films. If Dustan and Melton were hoping to elevate the series beyond that, they don't resist another tradition of a long-running slasher series. The normal people in these stories usually end up dead, defined more by their deaths than their personalities because each sequel must be bloodier than the last. Jason, Freddy, and their murderous brethren become the main attraction for the audience. If we are here to see the killers off folks, might as well make the victims obnoxious or dumb, to make it easier to root for their inevitable destruction. In the first two films, John Kramer mostly stuck people with common problems or who had made simple mistakes into his deadly games. If you thought it was fucked-up that Jigsaw targeted addicts or people with depression, that's cause it was. We were supposed to place ourselves in such a scenario, targeted by a lunatic for a "crime" that exists only in their head. However, the need to make every "Saw" more fucked-up than the last invites anticipation on the viewers' behalf. The horror fans want to see the blood and guts and mutilation, right? With every sequel, the chances of Jigsaw becoming a twisted anti-hero of sorts increased. 

"Saw IV" represents Wan and Whannell's creation reaching that quantum of sadism. This time, the people placed into Jigsaw's contraptions of agony include a dirty lawyer, a sex trafficker, a serial rapist, an abusive husband, and a crooked cop. It's hard to be upset when such people gouge their eyes out, get their limbs ripped off, have their scalps torn away by grinding gears, are run through with metal spikes, or crushed by giant blocks of ice. It is much easier to read such events as a twisted form of justice, these people getting what they deserve. Which undermines the entire point of the series, confuses what exactly the point of Jigsaw's machinations are here, and makes it harder to care if any of these folks live or die. It also means the audience gets a hall pass on finding the excessive gore and creative torture implements entertaining, driving away the potentially confrontational aspect of these movies. "Saw IV" is the fictionalized extrapolation of French peasants watching loyalists get guillotined and just as morally justifiable. Maybe Ebert was on to something when he compared "dead teenager movies" to carnival geek shows. Who goes to the geek show and feels bad for the chickens? 

Since "Saw IV" isn't even pretending to have us sympathize with the unfortunate people strapped in the torture machines, the role of protagonist is placed on an outside observer. As in part three, a random guy must run through the gauntlet of death, choosing whether to help the imprisoned victims or simply sit back and watch. Rigg, played by a very sweaty and serious Lyriq Bent, is at least less of a dispassionate observer than "Saw III's" Jeff. With the exception of the serial rapist – who he actually helps strap into the dismemberment machine – he at least tries to help people before they are torn apart. He's just kind of an idiot, who repeatedly barges into scenarios long past the point when he should have learned not to do that. The script also takes it for granted that he cares about rescuing Donnie Wahlberg's Detective Matthews, long since established as an asshole. Similarly, we are definitely suppose to relate to Agent Strahm's belligerent, blustery quest to unravel Jigsaw's plan. Which he intends to do largely by interrogating Kramer's widow. It's difficult to assign any sort of A.C.A.B. subtext to these plot threads but who knows. Whether the latter narrative does anything for you might depend on if you think there's any novelty in seeing "Gilmore Girls'" Scott Patterson or "Cheerleader Camp's" Betsy Russell in a movie like this. 

Russell – whose performance is better than Patterson's, who goes way too grouchy – is part of the one element of "Saw IV" that actually makes it a somewhat interesting film. As I said, "Saw IV" was almost a prequel, the script that became "The Collector" nearly serving as its blue print. Part four pushes the story forward but is still a prequel of sorts. Tobin Bell is guaranteed a paycheck thanks to extensive flashbacks to John Kramer's life in the time leading up to him becoming Jigsaw. This is a good move, largely because Bell is a compelling presence who is given juicy material to enact. Seeing what made a high successful engineer and toymaker into a sadistic quasi-serial killer is a transformation worth watching. The path "Saw IV" lays down is heavy-handed. A contrived scenario involving his wife's work at a clinic, a botched robbery, and an aborted fetus is specifically planned out to create Jigsaw as we know him, the screenwriters clearly working backwards from the conclusion we already have. These scenes also establish John Kramer as a big ol' hypocrite, his first "game" proving that this was always about revenge for him. (How intentional that is depends on how much credit you're willing to give the people who make these movies.) Still, it's more interesting than the convoluted on-going plot. The sequel even provides an explanation for Jigsaw's weird obsession with pig heads.

From what he's said in the topic, you get the impression that Darren Lynn Bousman had consigned himself to simply delivering fans the bloodshed they've come to expect by the time he made "Saw IV." The film opens with a graphic, extended autopsy sequence, seemingly an admission of sorts that we are only here for the gory special effects. The arm-ripping trap strikes me as similarly uninspired. The wife speared to her abusive husband and forced to either kill him or save herself is almost clever. I do kind of like the scalping machine, because it plays on fears of getting your hair caught in industrial machinery. Bousman's juvenile visual edginess does seem to have relaxed a little. "Saw IV" isn't as ugly as the previous two films, featuring less toxic waste green lighting. The Nu-Metal montages of people screaming while the camera swirls around them and the flashing lights as transitions are still here. There is a neat moment though, when a body tossed through a mirror leads us right into a flashback. Maybe this guy has some talent after all...

Ultimately, you're probably only watching "Saw IV" if you are a fan of this kind of thing or if you are the kind of person who watches every entry in a horror series after they've watched the first. Guess which one I am! Both audiences, admittedly, are exactly the kind of people who can keep track of plot points this unnecessarily dense. "Saw IV" filled me with less loathing towards the human race than the third but still falls short of the camp of the second or whatever genuine merits the first had. The series devoting itself to insular continuity, instead of merely having fun with ever-more improbable death machines, would eventually be its undoing. Lionsgate still got 139 million in box office, against a mere ten million budget, meaning the sequel did exactly what it was designed to do: Find a way to keep the money train rolling. And Bousman got to make his weird musical about live organ donation – which I kind of like – so the only losers were the people who stupidly expect something different from the fourth "Saw" movie. I do like the flashbacks centered on Bell and will admit some of the cruelty on display is creative. Whether that is enough to get me through the next six entries remains to be seen... [6/10]

Director Report Card: James Wan (2007) - Part Two

3. Death Sentence

In 1972, prolific author of crime thrillers and westerns Brian Garfield would publish a novel entitled “Death Wish.” The story of a pacifist accountant who becomes a vigilante after his wife is murdered and his daughter is assaulted by home invaders, it was a searing tale about how vengeance is useless, violence degrades everyone, and crime is a problem that can't be solved with a bullet. Not a best seller at first, “Death Wish” did win positive enough reviews to catch Hollywood's attention. Sidney Lumet was originally attached to direct and he wanted Jack Lemmon to star. Instead, the movie ended up being made by outspoken conservative Michael Winner and starred action hero Charles Bronson. Unsurprisingly, the resulting film did not reflect the anti-violent message of Garfield's book. In fact, it came across basically as a pro-vigilante film. That didn't stop “Death Wish” from becoming a box office success. An influential one too, eventually spawning four increasingly outlandish sequels and a whole slew of imitators about family men taking justice into their own hands. 

Brian Garfield was not too pleased about this. In 1975, he would write a sequel to his book called “Death Sentence,” seeking to reiterate his themes and dismiss the film adaptation's ideas about cowboy justice. The damage had been done by that point, however. The words “Death Wish” would always be associated with hyper-violent action shlock about avenging fathers with more than slightly racist undertones. James Wan was certainly aware of the Charles Bronson movies, as they had long since become cult favorites. Upon reading Garfield's novels, he became inspired to create a more faithful adaptation. He went so far as to invite Garfield to write the screenplay. Garfield's drafts were not used for “Death Sentence,” which ended up not resembling either of his novels much. It is notable, however, as Wan's first departure from the horror genre and his first movie not written by Leigh Whannell.

Nick Hume is a regular man with a humble office job. He loves his wife, Helen, and their two sons, Brendan and Lucas. Brendan is an aspiring athlete, considering attending university in Canada on a hockey scholarship. They stop at a gas station on the way home from school one night, when two armed thugs burst into the room. Brendan is killed by a man named Joe Darley, in order to initiate himself into his family's gang. Nick gets a good look at Joe's face, the police quickly arresting him. Upon learning that the killer will go away to prison for a few years at most, Nick willingly gives a testimony that lets Joe walk... Before hunting him down and, in a grief-fueled rage, killing him. Joe's gang quickly deduces that Nick is their brother's murderer and attacks the man. In the resulting confrontation, Nick kills another member of the gang. He soon finds himself the target of the Darley family, unleashing a chain reaction of violence that threatens everything he holds dear. 

"Death Sentence" is a movie that clearly wants to be about the futility of revenge. The thesis seems to be violence never brings justice, only destruction. After murdering Joe, Nick feels a momentary rush of joy. Shortly afterwards, he collapses in the shower, overwhelmed by remorse. He remains deeply paranoid about being found out, hiding a wound on his hand from his family and co-workers. Most obviously, his act of revenge only dooms him further. He kills the man who killed his boy, prompting that man's family to seek retaliation against Nick. This continues until he has lost everything. The idea is evident in the sequence most taken from Garfield's "Death Wish" novel, in which the criminals break into the Hume house and attempt to massacre the whole family. The murder of Nick's son was a senseless act but, trying to pay blood for blood, simply leads to yet more bloodshed. Moreover, in the finale, Nick has shaved his head and turned himself into a ruthless killer, prompting one of the crooks to point out that he's just like them now. His vigilante "justice" hasn't made things right, it's only turned him into something as bad as those he sought to punish. That's a revelation taken directly from Garfield's text.

That's the message "Death Sentence" wants to send and proclaims in unsubtle fashion several times. There's a problem, however. Wan's film depicts the Darley gang as cartoonish bad guys, with wild accents and lots of overcooked tough guy dialogue. In contrast, the Hume family is portrayed as loving and stereotypically wholesome. In the last act, the humble family man remakes himself into an action hero. He dons a leather jacket. He barks intimidating dialogue and muscles his way into bars. After a sequence in which he buys a bunch of guns – that luxuriates in the glory of the macho power of firearms – we get a thunderous montage of Nick loading his pistols and strapping up. By the time he's driving a muscle car through the front door of his enemies' lair, "Death Sentence" has become indistinguishable from the countless unironic vigilante flicks that followed in "Death Wish's" wake. The stated message of how revenge is bad and violence is self-destructive is seriously undermined when you joyfully depict your protagonist as a total bad-ass, as an avatar for the rage of every frustrated dad in the audience, guns as the righteous tools to deliver that vengeance, and his victims as bad guys that have it coming. 

There is one way "Death Sentence" might have been able to somewhat overcome the dissonance between what it says it's about and what it actually depicts. If the violence had been shown as realistic, as horribly uncomfortable for the viewer to watch as it is for the characters to experience. Considering Wan was coming from the cringe-inducing injuries of "Saw," you would think he could pull that off. You know things have gone wrong – and not only for our characters – when the criminals bust into the gas station and blow the attendant away in a massive spray of blood. Nick's eldest son then gets his throat slit with a machete, as if the gangsters were emulating Jason Voorhees. When Nick is fighting off the home invaders, there's an exciting stunt of him tackling a guy through the bannisters of the house. By the action hero finale, he's launching faceless goons across the room with shotgun blast, leaving huge gaping wounds in their chest. At one point, he blows a guy's leg off at the knee with some buckshot, the sort of gory spectacle that Jigsaw would employ against his captives. In other words, "Death Sentence" is taking too much joy in its violence. The film is directed not with a Peckenpah-ian sickening fascination with the mechanics of violence nor a mournful tone of how senseless this all is. Instead, Wan and his team think this shit is cool. 

The horror fanboy approach to the executions, the need to show off the creativity of the effects team by crafting "cool" gore, makes me wonder if I misread "Death Sentence." Is this, despite all its statements to the contrary, just another braindead vigilante flick? A mindless bit of Dads-ploitation about a middle-age man venting some righteous fury against unimportant crooks, as a cathartic way for the audience to unleash their own toxically-male desire to justifiably murder? At times, you get the impression that is exactly how Wan was approaching the material. Some of "Death Sentence's" best scenes are directed as a straight-forward thriller. When Nick seeks revenge on the man who killed his son, it's an exciting moment that makes good use of the claustrophobic setting by having the two men stumble around. A long one-take sequence is a chase through a parking garage, that climaxes in a genuinely clever and exciting stunt of a car rolling off the top floor. During the action-packed last act, when a sawed-off shotgun keeps blowing enormous and identical holes in the surrounding, I was wondering if I could enjoy this film simply as a goofy action movie. 

However, unavoidably, "Death Sentence" circles back to its own pretensions. Aisha Taylor has the thankless job of playing the police detective, aware of Nick's actions but lacking the evidence to arrest him, that appears to chastise the protagonist for his crimes. This is not the only time Nick is warned that he's starting down a path towards his own doom. In general, "Death Sentence" has a somber and serious tone. Multiple scenes are devoted to the family members crying and mourning for their dead boy, while an extremely on-the-nose song plays on the soundtrack. The film ends in an indecisive tonal place, that seems to both award Nick for his actions and consider them justified, while also leaving him a broken mess. (How broken depends on if you're watching the theatrical cut or director's cut, though the result is basically the same.) "Death Sentence" packs in over-the-top violence and action while also reminding us how bad this all is and putting its characters through misery. The result is a grim movie with a nihilistic tone. I suppose that does make you feel the futility of revenge but I don't think in the way the filmmaker intended. 

Another element that furthers the miserabilist mood of "Death Sentence" is its visual design. This was Wan's second film with the "Dead Silence" team of Leonetti and Knue, on photography and editing, but it actually resembles his debut more than his sophomore effort. The bleached lighting, grimy black and greys, and Lime Jolly Rancher green colors are back with a vengeance. A few times, the influence "Suspiria" and Bava has had on Wan is evident. There's some nicely foreboding reds in a few scenes. The action scenes are generally more controlled than usual but the film does fall into the spasmodic camera work and jittery editing of "Saw" several times. Most notably in the sequence where Nick awakens in the hospital, which does too good of a job of translating the character's disoriented mood to the viewer. In general, "Death Sentence" looks boring and ugly in the way a lot of horror and crime movies did in the 2000s. Everyone wanted to be Fincher and Romanek without studying what makes those guys' styles effective.

One must be forced to conclude that "Death Sentence" is, ya know, not very well written. John Goodman appears as the father of the crooks, putting on a bizarre Jersay accent and spiritedly spitting the script's most hard-boiled dialogue. He acknowledges that Nick is going to take his sons away from him, the same way his son took Nick's child from him. It's a nice bit of dramatic parallel that could have reinforced the uselessness of bloody revenge. Instead, the script throws that idea out there, has Goodman giving the murderer of his boy a weirdly understanding monologue, before disposing of the character in a way that only muddles the thematic waters further. The film wants it both ways. These bad guys are punks that deserve what's coming to him but also what our hero is doing shouldn't be emulated. (Though it does, the movie seems to think, look really cool.)

Another weird thing the film can't make up its mind about is what ethnicity the bad guys are. The "Death Wish" films can, charitably, be called "problematic" by having the creeps Bronson gunned down often be varying shades of brown. The films recalled, and reinforced, reactionary delusions about scary ethics coming to threaten the precious white family, raping and killing our wives and daughters. That cities are crime infested because they are also filled with people from different races and cultures. It was another way the films played into fantasies of good white men using good violence against bad foreigners. Wan seeks to avoid these racist undertones in "Death Sentence," by making the crooks Nick is after white people... Except when it doesn't. A lot of them speak Spanish. One of them is black. All-American Garrett Hedlund plays the eldest Darley brother but the shaved head and clothes they give him certainly recall the stereotypical image of a Latino gangbanger. When paired with the obvious working class roots of the Darley gang, and the Humes' more white collar background, the movie still invokes the same sort of racial divisions of the source material. 

What most holds "Death Sentence" together is a decent lead performance from Kevin Bacon. Bacon has, over the years, proven himself adept at playing both everyman leading men and scuzzy psychos, making him probably the ideal choice for this role. When playing an average family man who gets in way over his head, Bacon is quite good. He panics well and seems totally unprepared for what is happening but, at the same time, it's believable that he could be a threatening presence in a fight. He's also totally serviceable as an action hero in the last third. Unfortunately, the melodramatic streak in the script is something he can't convincingly play. Whenever the Nume family has to grieve, it always comes off as overdone and false. Since Kelly Preston as his wife has nothing to do in the story besides being sad about her dead kid and distraught partner, her performance is entirely made up of such theatrical notes. It's a good cast but, once again, they're let down by the confused script. 

"Dead Silence's" lacking script can be blamed on an admittedly exhausted writer and the studio insisting on doctoring up some scenes. I don't know if "Death Sentence" was vulnerable to a similarly rushed, pushy production. Its credited writer, Ian Mackenzie Jeffers, has only one other film of note: "The Grey," a similarly maudlin tale of manly grieving and bloody survival. So maybe this is simply his style. Released only three months after "Dead Silence" – one near the start of summer movie season, the other at the absolute ass-end on August 31st – Wan's third film grossed less at the box office and received equally bad reviews. (It probably didn't help that the two have similar sounding titles. They couldn't have found a name for this that wasn't a two word phrase that started with a variant of "Dead" and ended with a two-syllable S-word?) One person was pleased with "Death Sentence," however. Brian Garfield thought the gory violence was a bit much but said the adaptation respected the themes of his novels much more than previous adaptations. That is true. However, it turns out embracing the meat-headed tendencies of the material, Michael Winner style, leads to a more thematically coherent and entertaining movie than trying to be both a mournful meditation on the uselessness of revenge and a shoot-em-up action movie. [Grade: C]

Director Report Card: James Wan (2007) - Part One

2. Dead Silence

“Saw” generated a lot of buzz at the Sundance Film Festival, packing a theater full three nights in a row. After Lions Gate picked it up, James Wan and Leigh Whannell's agents insisted they have another production ready to go before “Saw” hit theaters. The idea being, if their debut flopped, they would already have their second chance in the pot. It was sound advice but Wan and Whannell were burnt-out from “Saw's” speedy production. Nevertheless, the duo put their heads together and pitched a haunted ventriloquist dummy movie to Universal. Wan must have sensed that “Saw's” hyper-violent reputation was already building infamy and was the kind of thing that could easily derail his career. He hoped a moody ghost story would prove his versatility. Unfortunately, the studio demanded rewrites and eventually brought in script doctors to tinker with Whannell's script. After cycling through several clunky working titles – “Shhhh...,” “Mary Shaw,” “The Doll” – and the film would be released as “Dead Silence.” It was not especially well received, commercially or critically, in 2007 but has gathered a cult following since then. 

Jamie and his wife, Lisa, have their domestic bliss interrupted when they receive a bizarre package: A vintage ventriloquist dummy with the name “Billy.” Jamie's home town of Raven's Fair had an urban legend attached to it: Mary Shaw, a popular ventriloquist in the thirties, died following the disappearance of a young boy. She was buried with her dummies. Her ghost is said to abduct people, test subjects for her quest to build the perfect doll. If you scream around her, she'll rip your tongue out. Jamie thinks it's only a legend but, while away from the apartment, Lisa is murdered in bizarre fashion. Under investigation from the cops, he returns to Raven's Fair, finding the town all but abandoned. He seeks out his rich father and new stepmom, before digging deeper into the mystery of Mary Shaw. Turns out, it is not merely a story. The ghost is real, plans to be reunited with her puppets, and have her revenge on the town.

It's an evergreen horror trope. We seemingly can all agree that ventriloquist dummies are kind of weird. Dolls already straddle the line between cute and creepy for many people, their plastic skin and painted irises venturing into the uncanny valley. They look a lot like something that is alive but most assuredly are not. (We hope.) The ventriloquist's tool takes this further, given still not quite life-like movement and voice by a puppeteer. Since at least 1929's “The Great Gabbo,” films have been making the suggestion that ventriloquists share an unhealthy link with their partners in performance. Horror films have certainly seen their share of living, or otherwise unsettling, dummies and dolls. We already knew James Wan had a fascination with puppets, having already used one as Jigsaw's mascot in “Saw.” “Dead Silence” sees him fully embracing the concept, making another Billy the Puppet one of the main stars of the show.

Whether Wan and his team did anything new with the idea of a creepy ventriloquist dummy is another question. “Dead Silence” rests heavily on the inherent spookiness of dummies by themselves. It works best when the camera gazes into Billy's painted eyes, before they start to slowly move. A flash-back to one of Mary Shaw's actual performances, wherein Billy takes personal offense to a heckler, acting seemingly on its own will beyond Mary's control, is exactly the kind of stuff that makes this a fruitful trope. The idea that the ventriloquist is expressing some suppressed emotion or the doll is an extension of their own hang-ups is fascinating. “Dead Silence” never runs much with those ideas afterwards though. It starts and stops with Mary seeing her puppets as her children, never seeking to explore any particular meaning or psychology in its set-up. “Magic,” this definitely is not.

“Dead Silence's” objective is far more humble than that. Wan and Whannell clearly set out to make an old fashion ghost story. The film clearly pays tribute to a number of predecessors in the genre. Wan uses the 1930s version of the Universal Studios logo at the beginning, showing his classic horror fan credentials. There's some Hammer horror vibes in the elaborate sets and misty graveyards of the small town. Mary Shaw resembles both Susan Hill's "The Woman in Black" and the stiffened corpse at the center of “Black Sabbath's” "The Drop of Water" segment. A corridor of billowing curtains while lightning flashes and thunder rolls outside reminds me of “The Cat and the Canary” and any number of other classic gothic chillers. In its best moments, “Dead Silence” successfully captures some of the ambiance of these earlier movies. There's a lot of billowing fog in the film, lots of shadowy hallways. The headlights from a car passing down a darkened road and through a mansion's gates scratches that itch. A shot of a clown doll in a rocking chair, its face passing in and out of darkness, is easily the coolest in the entire film. “Dead Silence” is never as scary or creepy as it wants to be but, when the mist rolls in and the cobwebs build up on the tombstones, it comes closest to achieving its goals. 

“Dead Silence” is trying very hard to be scary too. In accordance with the title, the film falls eerily silently right before Mary Shaw appears. This goes to show that more attention was paid to the sound design here than you'd expect from a quickie horror movie. Popcorn munching boo-shows is what Wan would come to specialize in. Meaning these silent stretches usually proceeds a loud shrieks on the soundtrack. However, "Dead Silence" is not as reliant on jump scares as you might think. A nightmare sequence, which otherwise serves no purpose to the story, has Billy appearing at Jamie's bedside in a red-tinted hotel room. The build-up actually works decently, before the visage of Shaw's ghost bursts into the room. This is true all throughout "Dead Silence," a movie that often goes for loudness when its quieter moments are way more effective. 

We know that "Dead Silence" was Wan's attempt to prove himself capable of more than merely tossing severed body parts and blood and guts around. With "Saw II" already in production, he must have foreseen the wave of torture-heavy flicks he had unleashed. However, you can definitely still tell that the same team who made "Saw" is behind "Dead Silence." This was Wan's first collaboration with cinematographer John R. Leonetti and editor Michael N. Knue, both veterans of the horror genre. Despite an expert team, the manic montages from "Saw" reappear here with a little less frequency. Usually, they are used during scene transition, which is less distracting. In fact, some of the camera movements or visual choices – such as a flashback beginning as a scratchy, black-and-white newsreel – aren't bad. At times, this is a really nice looking movie with a creepy atmosphere around it. 

That tension – between a desire to make a moodier film and the need to repeat "Saw's" big, dumb, loud success – is present all throughout. Close-ups of mutilated faces occur often, the film packing in enough gore to earn its R-rating. The script contains a surprise ending, one far more nonsensical and meaningless than "Saw's" climatic twist. Mary Shaw is give an elongated CGI tongue that extends out from her mouth and menacingly licks people's faces. I guess the idea is that her own tongue is extra-long from stitching her victims' tongue to her own? It looks goofy and isn't the only instance of subpar digital effects in the movie. As the film goes on, it gets a lot sillier. There are action movie worthy stunts, of people tossed through the air. All the while, another score from Charlie Clouser blares and hammers your ears, ignoring that the quieter, music box-like melody is actually its best touch. 

That "Dead Silence" is often derailed by a need to be bigger and flashier than a ghost story should be is frustrating. I think there was a lot of potential here. "Dead Silence" is ultimately a story about how you can't go back home. When Jamie returns to Raven's Fair, it's practically a ghost town. The town mortician, his mentally ill partner, Jamie's rich dad and his trophy wife are seemingly the only people left in the whole area. When Jamie is arguing with his father, he points out that his mother has been painted out of the family portrait. Familial resentment is the bread and butter of the ghost genre, the spirits of the dead representing bad memories that can never be put to rest. The film also resides soundly in the "Small Town with a Dark Secret" trope, another favorite of mine, as Mary Shaw's wrath was brought down on the community for the vigilante slaying of her. 

I'll go so far as to say I believe Mary Shaw had the potential to become an iconic horror villain. Her pale face, mouth carved up like a ventriloquist's dummy, and black gown is striking. The urban legend invented around her follows a classical mythological premise. Much like La Llorona or Lilith before her, Shaw is a child snatching she-spectre. She had no children of her own, filling that void with her countless dolls. Her evil action was born out of this desire for a child. The script never questions the sexist intent behind this legend. That being a mother is so important to a woman, she'll go mad without it and become a twisted inversion of the life-birthing Gaea, instead taking children away. Whannell's script undermines this point, actually, by having Shaw target adults more often than kids. The only implication that she preys on children is that the catchy nursery rhyme about her is clearly the kind of thing that would spread around the playground. All of this could've been developed more, resulting in a much smarter and sturdier film.

However, that speaks to another problem with "Dead Silence." Its story is actually shockingly thin. Once the inciting incident of Jamie and his wife receiving the dummy kicks off, there's truly only a handful of plot points that follow. He heads to his home town, buries Billy in Shaw's graveyard for her puppets – another near element – and argues with his dad. The rest of the film is more-or-less composed of our protagonist trying to dig up clues, getting attacked by the ghost, and running into an incompetent, always-shaving private detective. I'm not sure how much of this is Leigh Whannell's fault. The film repeatedly pauses for lengthy exposition dumps, from the town mortician, Jamie's dad, or even one of Shaw's dummies. He would criticize script doctors for fulfilling the studio's request for more clarified "rules" around the ghost. It's easy to assume that these sequences are what he was referring to. I agree, it's dumb to simply blankly state the backstory of your villain, to have someone just tell it to the main character. Wouldn't watching the hero uncover this information on his own have been a lot more compelling?

Then again, it's not like the protagonist is especially interesting either. There have been repeated attempts over the years to make Australian hunk Ryan Kwaten into a movie star and they have never stuck. Kwaten is blandly handsome but doesn't have much in the way of presence. Not that the character of Jamie, lacking any emotional center at all, gave him much to work with. He never seems especially haunted by the death of his wife. (Played by underrated Canadian scream queen Laura Regan, who probably should've been the star of the movie instead.) Donnie Wahlberg, as Detective Lipton, is really the only other consistent character in the film. He shows up repeatedly to hassle the hero before slinking off until it's decided he should appear again, ultimately getting the silliest death in the movie. Wahlberg convincingly mugs in his scenes but it would never be mistaken for meaningful acting. It's hard to say if any of these characters have much of an inner life at all. 

To learn that "Dead Silence" was a rush job for Whannell and Wan is not horribly surprising. The movie often feels half-formed, with a story seriously lacking in any narrative meat and totally blank characters. However, Wan's instinct to focus more on the foggy ambiance over foot-slicing gore was a smart one. There's enough spooky atmosphere in "Dead Silence" for me to almost like it. Mary Shaw is kind of a cool horror movie monster. The dummies are mostly creepy. The film exists in that half-way point between churned-out mainstream horror sludge and something a little cooler and smarter. That genre fans, always one to seize on some chilly scenery or a decent villain, would dig this one back up and make it a minor cult classic makes sense. A sequel was considered at one point, before the below-par box office came in. It's not hard to imagine an alternate timeline where Mary Shaw became a reoccurring cinematic baddie, with the Halloween masks and action figures to go with it. (A fitting fate for a doll-obsessed ghost.) At the same time, I can't recommend it myself. It's better than the similar but much dumber "Darkness Falls," for whatever that is worth. [Grade: C+]

RECENT WATCHES: Saw III (2006)

Gregg Hoffman was one of the major producers behind the original “Saw,” scraping together the one million dollar budget and founding Twisted Pictures alongside Oren Koules. He was also one of the voices pushing for a sequel to be made. While “Saw II” was in production, Hoffman was admitted to a hospital with some neck pain. Despite only being 42 years old, he unexpectedly died shortly afterwards. James Wan, Leigh Whannell, and Darren Lynn Bousman initially figured they would pass on further sequels. That they didn't want to push their luck. However, while at a dinner to remember Hoffman, the trio realized that “Saw III” was going to happen regardless. If that was the case, they wanted to make sure it was a fitting ode to their late friend. When you consider “Saw III” is another super gory horror movie full of maiming, torture, and brutal executions, it feels like kind of a weird tribute to a dead friend... I guess that's how it goes sometimes though. If loss and grief were on Bousman and Whannell's minds, it would certainly explain how the third film, grim even by the standards of this series, turned out the way it did though. 

Detective Kerry investigates the grisly aftermath of another one of the Jigsaw Killer's fatal games. She notices that the exit to the trap was welded shut, meaning the victim had no chance at all to survive. Shortly afterwards, Kerry is captured by the villain and falls prey to a similarly impossible to escape trap. At the same time, Dr. Lynn Denton – whose son was recently killed in a traffic accident, leaving her husband Jeff heartbroken – is kidnapped by Amanda, John Kramer's apprentice. Kramer is nearly at the end of his life, succumbing to his inoperable brain tumor. Denton is forced to operate on him, an explosive collar around her neck that will go off if Kramer dies or she tries to leave. Meanwhile, Jeff is undergoing his own trial. Jigsaw has captured the man who drove the car that killed the Denton's son, the witness who fled the scene, and the judge who let the culprit go. Jeff now has a choice: To either find it in himself to forgive those he blame for the death of his son or watch them die in Jigsaw's elaborate traps. However, more is going on than either know, John Kramer and Amanda playing their own game.

As only Darren Lynn Bousman's second feature film, it's tempting to say his style has gotten stronger, straying further from the obnoxious music video techniques so noticeable in "Saw II." I guess this is true. Aside from an overly dark opening scene and a scuffle that's hard to follow, I suppose "Saw III" looks more stable than the proceeding film. However, the sequel in no way leaves behind the ugly, annoying visuals tics that were already a series trademark. David A. Armstrong once again lights the movie in toxic waste green and Walmart-at-2 A.M. florescent beige. An additional touch of shit stain brown is added to emphasize the extra groddiness of the slaughter house setting. Kevin Greutert throws in perhaps more flashy edits than last time, with lots of white flashes, close-ups on photos and text, and the expected rocket-sled paced montages of people freaking out. If there was an occasional goofy charm to it last time, this style has now worn out its welcome for me. 

Maybe the always-ugly visuals grate on the nerves this time because "Saw III" is, so far, the most mean-spirited and nihilistic entry in an already extra-grim franchise. A lot of this has to do with our apparent protagonists this time around, introduced twenty whole minutes into the story. Lynn Denton is in a deeply depressed funk, becoming numb to pain and any other feeling. Bahar Soomekh plays her as often half-asleep. As depressing as Lynn is to be around, Jeff is much worse. This is a man so frozen in grief, so consumed by revenge, that he confronts everything interaction with screaming anger or whispered scorn. Being depressed or bereaved can feel like that but it's hard to take "Saw III" as a serious mediation on grief. The film employs hoary clichés like the dead son riding a tricycle or happier flashbacks to better times. Angus Macfadyen's petulant, gassy performance as Jeff is an exaggerated take that leaves little room for sympathy. 

Being able to sympathize with Jeff, to feel his tormented state of mind, would have helped the sequel a lot. Jigsaw's tests place Jeff into the role of observer, forced to sit back and watch the people he blames for his son's death as they suffer through elaborate tortures. He debates and angsts about what he should do before, always too late, deciding to help. What this means is that "Saw III" sticks us with an utterly ineffectual protagonist who is miserable to be around. The movie has nothing to say about overcoming grief or depression because Jeff doesn't do any growing or healing. Jigsaw's trial reduces him to either a dispassionate watcher or a hapless rescuer, forcing his hand or causing him to embrace his worst tendencies. You are left wondering what Jigsaw is trying to prove with these trial. I thought his whole modus operandi was forcing people to stop wasting their lives by making them fight for survival? How does making Jeff either embrace his need for vengeance or activate his basic human empathy achieve any of that? Moreover, why does Amanda drag Lynn in to perform surgery on John Kramer, when we already know that his condition is critical? She's giving him a few extra hours of life at most. 

The answer to many of the questions that "Saw III's" half-assed narrative presents are easy to find. The script is nothing more than a sketchy justification for more deadly games, to place more shrieking meat bags into industrial torture devices that rip them apart or force them to mutilate themselves. The violence in "Saw III" is notably wetter than in previous films. The opening trap involves Bousman's old buddy J. LaRose tearing metal rings from his body, his flesh stretching and blood spurting. The frantic montage that ensues during the second trial scene includes a lingering close-up on oozing intestines. Limbs are twisted around until bones burst though the skin and, in an especially vile touch, mulcified pig guts are used to drown someone. When someone does survive one of Jigsaw's traps, a random gun blast is introduced to kill them anyway. A female victim is left nude, adding an extra layer of uncomfortable sexualization to the violence that follows. And you can't introduce an explosive collar in the first act without the expectation that it will go off in the third. 

That's the sense all throughout "Saw III," that the movie wants us to anticipate the violent undoings. The question is never whether someone will survive but, rather, in what way will they die. So who gives a shit about what happens? The result is a horror film with an especially nihilistic tone, leading towards a hopeless ending filled with death and blood. How can we care about any of these people when they only exist to die in hideous ways? The sequel is so desperate to top previous installments, to be nastier and bloodier and meaner, that it devotes a lengthy scene to depicting chop-shop brain surgery in lingering close-ups. Critics often denigrate the horror genre by saying it's nothing but gruel tossed around on-screen to titillate a sadistic audience. "Saw III" embraces that label, rather than fighting it. 

Leigh Whannell still has the sole writing credit on "Saw III" and you kind of get the impression that he had to crank this one out in a hurry. The sequel's structure is weird, devoting its first several scenes to wrapping up lingering plot threads from previous films before moving ahead with the new story. I also suspect he was starting to run out of ideas, as part three seems preoccupied with revisiting scenes from the earlier films. (Not to mention the gory executions are largely taken from medieval history books.) Looking back does provide the sole compelling element of the film though. We see more of John Kramer and Amanda's relationship. How does a person end up becoming a devoted student of the man who nearly killed them? We still learn little about Amanda's past, other than her being a recovering addict and cutter, but it's clear that she's a person who never had any direction or emotional support in her life. Jigsaw is clearly a fanatic, too invested in creative ways to mutilate people, but he still gave Amanda a meaningful purpose. He cared about what she did with her life. 

Both Whannell and Bousman have referred to "Saw III" as a "twisted love story" about these two's "father and daughter relationship" but it reads a lot differently to me. Shawnee Smith's performance veers towards ugly histrionics, playing Amanda as still a desperate addict but now hooked on Jigsaw's validation, instead of junk. Tobin Bell, meanwhile, increasingly turns Jigsaw into a diluted monk of a religious order only he understands. This relationship is not one of a father and a daughter. It's of a cult leader and his most devoted disciple, of an obviously vulnerable person being manipulated by the man who has power over them. Considering Kramer is a dying man whose hobby involves a lot of construction and welding, he probably needed people to help him carry out his plan. Who better than a woman with nothing else to live for? Yes, I am implying that Jigsaw "groomed" Amanda into being his sidekick. If "Saw III" explored this dynamic more, it would actually be an interesting film. 

I've enjoyed plenty of sick movies. I've gone to bat for films that aren't much more than glorified effects reels. I defended "Terrifier 3" and "Cannibal Holocaust," both grosser movies than this one. I don't necessarily think fiction asking us to embrace our inner psychopaths and enjoy some violence is a bad thing. But you've got to temper it with something else. Commentary on the human condition or society or just some fucked-up jokes or a sense of momentum or wit. There's an ugliness to "Saw III's" approach, an insistence that none of this matters and that life is only suffering and sorrow, that I find distasteful. Moreover, it's boring. If everyone in the film is only there to die, there's no suspense. Only the efforts of Bell and Smith to add some substance to the only interesting pair of characters in the film raises this from an utterly miserable experience to a movie with something to offer. However, "Saw III" made 150 million dollars more than its budget at the box office, so I guess the sequel did honor Gregg Hoffman's legacy. [4/10]

RECENT WATCHES: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)

Vin Diesel passed on “2 Fast 2 Furious” because he thought the script sucked. He compared it to an eighties style sequel, where familiar characters are slotted into an unrelated story to keep the money train rolling. That's actually a fair description of the film but the sequel still made 236 million worldwide. Universal execs must've come to the conclusion that “The Fast and the Furious” didn't need Vin Diesel. Perhaps a sequel didn't need any of the established characters. This theory would be tested in “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift,” a movie more-or-less unconnected to the previous films save for the premise of street-racing. 

17-year-old Sean Boswell can't seem to stay out of trouble. One day while leaving school, he earns the scorn of Brad from “Home Improvement.” This results in a drag race that ends with the jock injured and Sean's car totaled. Fed up, his mom ships him off to Tokyo to live with his dad. Sean doesn't stay out of trouble for long though. He soon makes of acquaintance of grifter Twinkie, who introduces him to Han. A star mechanic in the world of drift racing, Han soon takes Sean under his wing as his driver and courier. Sean catches the eye of Neela, the girlfriend of local racing star (and nephew of a Yakuza boss) Takashi. Rivalries intensify, things get more dangerous, and Sean is embroiled in the world of underground Tokyo drift racing. 

On paper, “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” is really no more-or-less preposterous and derivative than the previous two entries in the franchise. The opening race scene sets up a ludicrous series of events. The likelihood of Sean encountering the two other people who speak English in the middle of this bustling Japanese metropolis seems low. The minute Han first gets a look at the kid, we know the exact beats of their mentor/student relationship that are coming. Furthermore, you see how the pieces are going to fall into place on the path to that climatic race scene early on as well. The fish-out-of-water premise is never fully utilized, Sean integrating himself into Japanese culture very quickly. The exotic setting doesn't go too far beyond the lay-out of the tracks and the color of the supporting cast. The final race doesn't even take place in Tokyo but on a nondescript mountain. 

All of this is obviously true but I still found myself a lot more involved in “Tokyo Drift” than its predecessors. Sean Boswell is a ridiculous character, a supposed high schooler who looks like he's pushing thirty. Lucas Black's country-bumpkin accent is only the most obviously ridiculous element of this cartoonish character. However, I have to admit the movie got me to like Sean. He stands up for his friend – the absurdly named Twinkie, played by the artist formally known as Lil' Bow-Wow – when they are bullied by one of Takeshi's generals. He also never gives up. He keeps pushing through the opening drag race, after the bully starts to slam his car into his. He drags his scrapped vehicle up the parking garage during his first drift race. That kind of tenacity, not to mention a willingness to stand up for a little guy, can't help but endear this goofball to me.

Universal managed to lure in up-and-coming filmmaker Justin Lin to direct “Tokyo Drift.” You can tell Lin put his own stamp on material that he was not initially enthusiastic about. The most obvious of these touches is the character of Han, who originates in Lin's earlier film, “Better Luck Tomorrow.” Sung Kang, as Han, is acting on a different level than everyone else in the movie. There's a lived-in quality to his performance that makes it more real, more nuanced than the pulpy material around him. This makes the totally expected friendship that forms between him and Sean a lot more involving. The film definitely looses something once Kang exits it, though Lin is smart enough to put Sonny Chiba in a prominent role to drum up further interest. 

It's not like anyone was watching the third “Fast and the Furious” movie and expecting rich characterization and award-winning acting. Nah, this is a car movie. In that regard, “Tokyo Drift” definitely delivers as well. Perhaps learning a lesson from the abuse of CGI in “2 Fast 2 Furious,” Lin makes sure to mix real cars and digital replicas with a lot more subtly this time. There's only a few moments of obvious blue screen work and notable computer graphics here. Otherwise, “Tokyo Drift” is happy to deliver some high speed racing, shiny Japanese vehicles swerving around turns and weaving through traffic. The editing is fast paced but not incoherent, the camerawork and cutting doing a good job of putting the viewer in the seat of the cars. The wrecks are pretty spectacular too, with lots of twisted metal and spinning bodies. 

In other words, Justin Lin was given a shit assignment with “Tokyo Drift.” The disconnect from the rest of the franchise – if not for a literal last minute cameo, there would be no link to the earlier films at all – combined with the goofy high school premise made this seem like one of Universal's direct-to-video sequels given a big budget boost. Out of this less than inspiring material, the filmmaker managed to put together a pretty entertaining flick. The stunt work is strong, directed and assembled nicely. While I would not go so far as to say there's much in the way of pathos here, “Tokyo Drift” has more heart in it than expected. That goes a long way in a franchise so terminally brainless up to this point. [6/10]