Saw III
Director: Darren Lynn Bousman
Writer: Leigh Whannell, James Wan
Sequel to: Saw, Saw II
Cast: Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Angus Macfadyen, Bahar Soomekh, Donnie Wahlberg, Dina Meyer, Leigh Whannell, Mpho Koaho, Lyriq Bent, Costas Mandylor, Betsy Russell
Seen on: 22./23.9.2025

Plot:
Jeff (Angus Macfadyen) is grieving his son’s death – and his grief and need for revenge is put to the test by Jigsaw (Tobin Bell), or rather his successor Amanda (Shawnee Smith). While he is brought to all the people he blames to decide over life and death, Jigsaw himself is also fighting to stay alive. Having kidnapped talented doctor Lynn (Bahar Soomekh), she finds herself with the task of keeping him alive long enough to save her own life.

Saw III fundamentally misunderstands what made the original Saw film interesting and generally left me more than underwhelmed.

For me, the draw of the Saw movies was always the question of what people do when they are faced with impossible choices – like in the first film (plus, the gory contraptions are pretty cool). The second film already moved away from that question, but the third film barely gives a fuck at all anymore about that. Instead it is all about Jigsaw the man and what motivates him, and honestly, I just don’t care. People do fucked up shit and rationalize a lot of shitty things. Jigsaw is just another one of those people.

The movies also tried too hard to be clever with its test within a test within a test set-up that just stretches everything beyond belief. I really don’t expect realism when I watch a Saw movie, but my ability to suspend my disbelief has its limits, and the film is way past it. Amanda’s breakdown also seemed to take an easy way out that didn’t actually make much sense to me either.

Finally, there were way too many flashes in the editing and in the narrative. I really don’t need a recap of what just happened in the film in the middle of the film, thank you very much. I just watched it. It just makes for a weird mix of a film that thinks it is much cleverer than it is and thinks that its audience really can’t follow that supposedly superior thinking. Neither is the case.

Yet, there was something entertaining about III, that maybe puts it slightly ahead of II, if only for Soomekh’s great presence.

Summarizing: well. It’s not good, but here we are.