Saw IV

What Do We Saw IV? Bousman's Latest is Pleasing and Honest

Caughson McSellig, Revuer of Film

The home improvement film genre counts among it some of the greatest films of all time. It includes such greats as The Apartment, Rear Window, and The Thing. Though it will likely be received with some suspicion, the latest addition to this rich genre, Saw IV, directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, fresh from a two year stint ghost-writing Craigslist ads, is a worthy contribution and, in this reviewer's humble opinion, deserves a place in the canon right next to Bridge Over the River Kwai and Last House on the Left.

The story is a period piece taking place in the early to mid 1950s with the nation on the brink of McCartheyism and it centers around Langston Malory, who goes by Langie to his numerous friends and agents. Langie, played by the charming if somewhat irresponsible, Cassie Affleck, has amassed a limitless fortune as the greatest user of a saw in Chatham County, Georgia.

The film begins with a young Langie (Leon Ovitz) going with his father, Gerald (Vingh Raimes) to watch the great saw users of the 1930s. Langie, who wants nothing but to follow in their footsteps but his family is too poor to afford a saw. There is one scene in particular in which Ovitz treats us to a wonderful depiction of a young man, frustrated, confused, scared but at the same time hopeful as he enters a saw using contest with a saw fashioned from a stick and one of his abuse uncle's (Wilford Brimley) broken whiskey bottles. Langie's father eventually saves enough money to buy his son a saw with the meager wages he makes a candy shopkeeper, singing and selling candy to bewildered children at inflationary prices. Saw in hand, Langie joins the high school saw using team and his career takes off.

Fast forward fifteen years, to 1953 the height of the saw using movement, and Langie has made his fortune as the greatest user of a saw in the infamous Chatham County. Ensconced in his palatial estate (a fitting, but indelicately obvious homage to Gone With the Wind) surrounded by his beautiful but manipulative and impetuous wife, Laralie (the chick from The Devil Wears Prada) and as many as three children, a large number of cars and a seemingly endless collection of exotic animals, Langie appears to have it all. But still he can't help but saw all day, never satisfied with what everyone insists is his perfect saw using.

He is shocked out of his trance when his father comes to visit him on a unseasonably warm Halloween night. So excited is Gerald Malory at the sight of his son that he trips over his Green Latern costume, falling under Langie's saw. So tranced is Langie in perfecting saw using that he doesn't realize he's sawed his father entirely in half until it is too late.

After this tragedy (Langie manages to place blame for this horrific murder on his comically befuddled saw using assistant Siffle (Shia LeBouf) and thereby escape prison) his wife and children leave him in fear for their safety and Langie is forced to ask: what does he saw for, who does he saw for, and, most importantly, why does he saw for?

The second half of the film finds Langie on a quest for the true meaning not only of saw using, but life. Joining him on this journey are the famous saw user, believed to have been kidnapped by the Soviets and forced to saw things for their atomic bomb project, Garith McDowel (Peter O'Toole) and the inevitable love interest Lacie Fuller (Rachel McAdams). On this quest, Langie is forced to reclaim his title as Chatham County's greatest saw user from the grips of his rival, Chimminy Willerstone (Nicholas Cage) and fend off accusations by Chimminy that he is a Communist, accusations which eventually find Langie before the House Committee on Un-American Activities before which Langie makes an impassioned plea on behalf of free expression in the use of saws for the improvement of homes.

The film waffles between the profound and the redundant, without ever achieving equilibrium and quite often flirting with the absurd. Saw IV will undoubtedly take on messianic importance for the saw using community. Its treatment of the craft is loving and profound, thanks to the artful camera direction of ex-M16 agent Welks Norrington, and is reason alone to see this film. In particular, the scenes of Langie sawing after the death of his father brought to this reviewer a meaning to saw using which can only have been wrought from years of study and hands-on saw using.

As for the rest of us; be on guard for the condescending and vain, though the human understanding and hope embodied in the film otherwise make it more than worthwhile viewing. Whether its Langie's exotic animals breaking him out of prison after his arrest by McCarthey's agents or O'Toole's rendering of an aging saw user in a world of less-old saw users, there are lessons for all viewers to take away and cherish. Not least among these is the lesson that no matter what tragedy befalls us, salvation can always be found in good honest saw competition and in dishonest alienation of friends, family, and pets.

This film receives two thumbs up out of five.