Saw VI (2009)

"What am I supposed to learn from this?"

It's a little odd, perhaps, to see a Saw film with a left wing message. Like the Punisher and Dirty Harry, these films have always carried a transparently reactionary attitude to crime and punishment in which brutal revenge matters and to hell with due process, rehabilitation or the unjustly convicted. Yet here the left wing, communitarian message is combined with these reactionary views on crime and punishment. This reminds us of two things: firstly, the social democratic left has never been particularly liberal; and secondly, people in real life are more complicated in their politics than to adopt the standard left wing or right wing package of views as a whole.

This film concerns how the recently late and unlamented John Kramer was unfortunate to live in a first world country with a third world health system, one in which, instead of the government buying in everything wholesale with huge discounts and passing the price on to the taxpayer, there is mostly a reliance on the private sector, the profit motive and dodgy insurers.

We know that William Easton,the health insurance bloke who turns down John, is inevitably facing a grisly fate. He may, strictly speaking, simply be a cog in a larger machine, but the plot takes care to emphasise both his personal culpability for, in effect, sentencing John to death, and shows him to be the sort of cad who cheats on his wife on her birthday for good measure. He's doomed.

Meanwhile, in the present day, our old friend Hoffman finds himself investigating his own crimes, and the scapegoating of the late Strahm seems to be going perfectly. And, of course, Jill has been left a box by her serial killer husband, no doubt intended as some sort of "lesson". Sensibly, she has some red wine before opening it. Oh, and Perez (remember her?) is awkwardly still alive. We know full well that Hoffman is going to get rumbled. He deserves it; flashbacks reveal his involvement from a very early stage.

Hoffman and Jill are working together. There are envelopes. There are frightening views expressed about drug addiction (and wrong- look at Amanda). The plot, meanwhile, is as delightful a puzzle as always, and as usual the saving grace of the film.

William's test is, I suppose, grimly appropriate; he is pitted against a Man who neglects his health, and forced to restrict his breathing. William is the one who lives and, of course, learns nothing from this pointless ordeal. I'm beginning to suspect that, for this film at least, the authorial voice agrees with me.

We are not done with William; he has to choose, arbitrarily, which of his staff lives or dies, and he gets a philosophical chat with John. His penultimate test is to suffer physical pain to help an underling, or she dies. It is he, as the boss, who has the agency here, the power of life and death. Naturally, he refuses, what with her being an expendable pawn, and there is a fight, the unfettered free market red in tooth and claw. The left wing subtext here is extraordinary; it is interesting that this film was released shortly before Obama's still rather right wing health reforms became a thing.

William's final test is a massacre of his entire staff, except that he can save a maximum of two by painfully giving up his hands. Lovely. This is a nice little microcosm of what he does for a living, of course, and naturally they all die. In the final twist, his death comes atcthechands of a woman who holds a grudge against him and is not, as we assume, his wife.

We end with the usual stream of revelations, and Hoffman's fatal comeuppance at the end of Jill. I like this film a lot; Jigsaw remains a psychopathic, sanctimonious shit, but at least this time the film was about something.

Saw V (2008)

"They're connected. So in the end all of the pieces will fit together."

Veteran readers of this blog will recall that I blogged the first four of these films four years ago, and rather enjoyed the intricate plotting and clever final reveals that these films have always had. But I always had my qualms, being of a somewhat liberal bent, as to whether John Kramer's brutal attitude to law and order was endorsed by the authorial voice. I finally stopped watching, though, after the gore went a little too far. I'm not very squeamish, but I have my limits.

Still, it's time to return to the final few films in the series, starting with this one: I hate to leave a job unfinished. And it's a good 'un; the plotting is as intricate and superb as ever, with a cruel twist at the end in which Strahm not only dies horribly but is framed for Hoffman's crimes. It was surprisingly good to get back into this series of films; the familiar Twisted Pictures logo put a huge smile on my face.

We begin with a typical torture puzzle from Jigsaw, the details of which, I think, we shall draw a veil over. The difference, of course, is that he does what's required and dies anyway, as it is Hoffman, not Kramer, who is in charge. Crucially, those who, like myself, see absolutely no moral difference between Hoffman and Kramer. They're just different types of psychopath.

Strahm, the poor bloke, is certainly warned from the start not to enquire further, but he is certainly the good guy here. Sadly, though, he's no match for the late, evil, clever Jigsaw, whose control over his intricate plans, and indeed his wife, extend well beyond death. He reminds me very much, I think, of Ian Brady. It seems absurd that the films can continue on and on after the demise of the central character, but they do, and it never feels silly.

Mark Hoffman, meanwhile, is praised and promoted, the smug bastard. At least we know, even at this point, that he will eventually get his brutal comeuppance. We see flashbacks to his first meeting with Kramer, and everything is neatly retconned for him to have been Jigsaw's accomplice all the time. There is a discussion about "ethics" between these two evil men, as Kramer is under delusions that he is somehow less evil; he rages against a "corrupt legal system that puts murderers back on the streets" but, rather revealingly, conspicuously fails to give a monkeys about the wrongfully convicted.

The film centres around an intricate, sadistic trap for a group of people involved in corruption surrounding a building that proved to be a death trap, one if whom is Julie Benz from Angel. It's a clever sequence, in which it is their failure to work together, as intended, which dooms them; the Saw franchise is back on form.

I must say that Strahm's eventual death is needlessly horrific, but this is bloody good. I hope this standard can be kept up.

Angel: Blood Money

“It’s actually kind of fun when you know the rules. I mean, you know there aren’t any.”

This is an interesting period of the season, with Angel having adventures separately from the gang. They continue to tread water in setting up their agency, something which seemed to be established last time. Angel, meanwhile, continues his single minded pursuit of Wolfram and Hart plus a certain two vampire ladies.

We start with Wesley and Gunn playing risk at Cordelia’s, doing nothing. The gang has no plan, no office, nothing. But they succeed magnificently against a conveniently off-screen baddie and end up with a new office, albeit one that isn’t as posh as the Hyperion. So much for them. They’re comic relief in this episode.

As far as Angel is concerned, his new attitude is challenged when he comes face to face with Anne, who has changed many times since we first met her in Buffy. Her latest persona is that of a single minded charity worker, who cares deeply about the homeless children to whom she is dedicated, to the exclusion of all else. She cares not that Wolfram and Hart will be taking 95% of the cash from the charity ball they arranged. Nor does she give a monkeys that this may be used for deeply nefarious purposes. For her, nothing exists beyond the cause. Her social conscience may be myopic, but at least she has one. Angel has no social conscience at all right now.

Angel’s scheme may be clever, cool, and knocked down Wolfram and Hart a peg or two, but it is deeply cynical. Angel doesn’t even bother to expose them, knowing that this will be covered up, and he wishes to do nothing more than rattle them a bit. Still, at least he’s sufficiently affected by Anne’s scolding to hand over the money to her, which she gladly accepts despite the literal blood on it. That’s single mindedness for you! This episode contrasts single mindedness in the cause of others (Anne) and single mindedness for selfish purposes (Angel), and it’s clear which is morally better.

Of course, we get more competition between Lilah and Lindsay, ending in an interesting bit of information from their new boss, that Angel is a “major player” in the forthcoming apocalypse. The prophecies do not detail what side he is due to be on, so our evil lawyer friends seek to darken his soul, seemingly with some success. Lilah and Lindsay, they will be reassured to know, are just expendable foot soldiers in this cause. This may be something of an episode of the week, but there is a lot of arcy stuff going on in the background.  

Aliens (1986)

“They’re coming out of the walls! They’re coming out of the Goddamn walls! ”

Never has it been more predictable which film I’m going to review next. The next two will be equally predictable. Incidentally, this is the original theatrical version that I’m reviewing.

Much to my surprise, I didn’t remember anything about this film, and I suspect that I may not have seen it in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s as I assumed I had. I’m sure I would have remembered such an excellent film which, it’s immediately obvious, has burrowed its way deep into popular culture.

This is how you do sequels. Yes, it takes elements from the previous films, not least the physical qualities of the aliens. Yes, the suspense is what drives the film, just as is does for Alien. But James Cameron is a very different director from Ridley Scott; he’s much less arty. He doesn’t shoot things to look beautiful. It’s all about the suspense.

Cameron is also the scriptwriter, which gives us a pleasing unity of vision. His script is a little different in that there’s less emphasis on world building (although this is an interstellar future of cigarettes and 1980s style clothes) and an awful lot of emphasis on the US Marine characters. US Marines seem to have been very much in the Hollywood zeitgeist in 1986, the year of Platoon and a year before Full Metal Jacket, and the macho military high jinks of their interactions are so delightfully 1980’s. All the tropes are present and correct: the highly quotable sarge, the inexperienced and panicky lieutenant, the woman who’s more mach than the men, and the annoying one who keeps loudly opining that they’re all going to die.

There’s one minor plot niggle at the start; Ripley’s ship is found, purely by chance, after fifty-seven years. But the chances of this must be infinitesimal! Space is not the sea. It’s unimaginably huge. Also, what’s powering the ship to keep Ripley alive and frozen for all those decades?

Still, let’s handwave these things away. This is a superb, tense thriller, crammed with little moments that make you jump. There’s misdirection; the robot, Bishop, turns out to be a rather heroic chap who’s clearly read his Isaac Asimov (there’s even a semi-direct allusion to the Laws of Robotics), while Carter Burke, the apparently sympathetic company chap, turns out to be this film’s equivalent of Ash. There are plenty of scenes with motion detectors where the aliens turn out to be above the ceiling or below the floor.

But the film is basically about the women. The best soldier is Vasquez, and the most clear-headed and courageous characters are Ripley and her surrogate daughter, Newt. Ripley gets to look much, much cooler in this film. She even gets to wear a badass forklift suit (which looks so, so ‘80s) and fight an alien which is, like, the coolest thing ever. And yet… the first film symbolically had a man get orally raped and impregnated by an alien, where in this film it’s only women who are seen to be threatened by this fate. It seems that perhaps this is the price they have to pay for being so strong.

The aliens are nicely developed, though. It’s Ripley who asks the question that, if the aliens reproduce parasitically, who lays the eggs? Of course, we (and Ripley) see the answer, an end of level boss that is presumably the “queen” of the hive, and it’s gloriously disgusting. Ripley is fantastic; in going back to save Newt she proves herself to be both utterly badass and the perfect mother.

The ending, with its countdown and airlocks, bears certain similarities to the earlier film, but I suspect this is intentional. The ending is surprisingly abrupt, but this is a brilliant film.

Oh, and fellow Doctor Who fans; Tip Tipping is an extra and Stuart Fell is a stuntman!