Written by Patrick Melton And Marcus Dunstan
Directed by David Hackl
Jigsaw (to Hoffman): "Everybody deserves a chance."
I'm halfway through this franchise and it's incredible that for the main character still being dead, they keep finding ways to make him relevant to the plot. Jigsaw/John Kramer (Tobin Bell) - the post death hold you've got on this series should be studied.
Anyways, the previous movie established that Detective Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) was an apprentice/wannabe successor to Jigsaw and we got his origin story in this one. Is he worthy of Kramer's mantle? The obvious answer would be no of course.
The movie opened with a grisly death of killer Seth Baxter (Jordan Jarsky). Let's just say that Edgar Allen Poe inspired the means of Seth's demise but it was credited to Jigsaw. However, it was Hoffman's doing and Jigsaw wasn't pleased about being credited for such a sloppy opening kill.
Anyways Hoffman's motives for murdering Seth were down to the latter killing his sister. I suppose I should give the movie points for trying to make him a bit more sympathetic but it's clear his values are different. With Kramer, there's that warped sense of justice/trying to get people to be better versions of themselves. Like Amanda, Mark clearly just wanted to kill and make his victims suffer before they die.
Speaking of victims, we've got five connecting ones here. Ashley (Laura Gordon), Brit (Julie Benz), Charles (Carlo Rota), Luba (Meagan Good) and Mallick (Greg Bryk). All of them have different professions but all of them played the role in some recent deaths (though not intentionally). To the movie's credit, there's a decent attempt to flesh out these characters before they're all taken out of the mix.
As for the rest of the movie, I was surprised that Agent Strahm (Scott Patterson) actually survived the previous movie. Granted, he still had to make a sacrifice and his attempts to catch out Hoffman ended badly for him. He's a decent foil for Hoffman until he wasn't.
- There's more flashbacks to Kramer bequeathing a mystery box to his ex-wife Jill. The latter was also being stalked by Strahm.
- There's brief appearances from Amanda, Eric, David and Agent Perez in this movie.
- The film didn't end with "Game Over" like previous movies did.
- Chronology: Shortly after the events of the fourth movie but some flashbacks included the third as well.
Saw V made for an okay addition to the franchise. It's very much the middle part of the Hoffman trilogy, giving him a needed backstory. It also separated him from Jigsaw, making him into a more conventional sadist compared to his deceased mentor.
Rating: 6 out of 10
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