Saw

With no obvious connection between them, two men awaken to find themselves chained to the plumbing at opposite ends of a room. "Adam" (Leigh Whannell) is a photographer, the other is "Lawrence" (Cary Elwes), a doctor. Each have a micro-tape in their pocket and the only tape player in the room is nestled neatly in the hands of a corpse situated on the centre of the floor. A bit of ingenuity is needed to obtain the kit to play the tape and hopefully get some clue as to why there are there. Suffice to say that they do not like what they hear, and with the clock ticking they will have to learn to trust each other whilst having quite a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. Meantime, the police (Danny Glover) are interviewing a woman who might have managed to escape from a similarly orchestrated predicament. Might there be any way that she could help track down this devious mastermind who doesn't ever actually do any of his own killing - he just manipulates with astonishing purpose. Elwes and Whannell (who also wrote this) both deliver really quite strongly here as does their claustrophobic and distinctly unsanitary prison environment as the story tells us via contemporaneous and flashback imagery a little of their stories and of just why they have attracted the attention of this vengeful "jigsaw killer". It's not especially graphic, this film, though there is a fair smattering of gore - it's the psychology that helps it to deliver better. There's always that element of what might we do to survive, or - maybe more apposite - what might we be prepared to do to others. The writing also helps it along with the exasperation of all well exemplified without just resorting to loud voices and expletives. In the end, I found that I did actually care what happened to these men - but with the clock against them, what are their chances? It's tense and compelling and reminded me a little of "Se7en" (1995).