‘Saw X’ Review: Tobin Bell Dominates a Torture-Porn Sequel That Comes Closer to Being a Real Movie. That Might Be a Good Thing (or Not)
Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic The “Saw” films have always been rightfully tagged as torture porn, but they come on as flesh-ripping morality plays. Each victim, strapped into his or her loopy-ingenious electro-medieval Rube Goldberg slicer-dicer-chopper-gouger, is being put through the agonies of the damned only because of some sin that he or she committed in the real world. The whole concept of sin, articulated this heavily, is more than a little corny (that’s one reason I think the seven-deadly-sins premise of David Fincher’s “Se7en” is that film’s most rickety dimension, rather than its most dramatic), but there’s no denying that in the “Saw” movies the concept serves a canny purpose.