Saw III

Saw III
Directed by	Darren Lynn Bousman
Produced by	Mark Burg; Gregg Hoffman; Oren Koules
Starring	Tobin Bell; Shawnee Smith; Angus Macfadyen; Bahar Soomekh; Dina Meyer
Music by	Charlie Clouser
Cinematography	David A. Armstrong
Editing by	Kevin Greutert
Distributed by	Lionsgate
Release	October 27, 2006
Running time	120 minutes
Country	United States;
Language	English
Budget	$10 million
Gross revenue	$164,874,275
Preceded by	Saw II
Followed by	Saw IV

Saw III is a 2006 Canadian-American horror film directed by Darren Lynn Bousman from a screenplay by Leigh Whannell and story by James Wan and Whannell. Wan and Whannell directed and wrote Saw and Bousman wrote and directed Saw II. It is the third installment in the seven-part Saw franchise and stars Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Angus Macfadyen, Bahar Soomekh and Dina Meyer. Bell, Smith, Meyer, Donnie Wahlberg and Lyriq Bent reprise their roles from the previous films. Franky G and Tim Burd from Saw II make small cameos. Saw III marks the first appearances of Costas Mandylor and Betsy Russell, albeit minor roles; they would later become major characters in the series.

The story follows Jeff Denlon - After his son is killed in a car crash; he is put in a series of tests by Jigsaw in order to try and let go of his vengeance on the man that killed him. Meanwhile a bed-ridden John Kramer has ordered his apprentice Amanda Young to kidnap Jeff's wife, Lynn, in order to keep him alive for one final test before he dies of his illness.

Production began right after Saw II's successful opening weekend. Filming took place in Toronto from May to June 2006. Whannell aimed to make the story more emotional than previous installments, particularly with the Amanda and Jigsaw storyline. The film is dedicated to producer Gregg Hoffman who died on December 4, 2005.

Saw III was released on October 27, 2006 and was a financial success, opening to $33.6 million and grossing $80.2 million in the United States and Canada. It is the highest-grossing film of the series in the international market with $84.6 million and the highest-grossing film in the series with $164.8 million worldwide. It received mixed to negative reviews from critics. Bell was nominated for "Best Villain" at the 2007 MTV Movie Awards and the film received nominations for a Saturn Award as "Best Horror Film" and Teen Choice Award. Saw III was released to DVD and Blu-ray Disc on January 23, 2007 and topped the charts selling 2.5 million units in its first week. It was followed with a midquel, Saw IV, released in October 2007.

Plot[]

Minutes after Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith) seals him in the bathroom, Detective Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) escapes his shackle by breaking his foot with a toilet tank cover. Six months later, a SWAT team led by Lieutenant Daniel Rigg (Lyriq Bent) discovers the site of a game in which the victim, Troy (J. Larose), had to rip chains from his flesh to escape a bomb. Detectives Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) and Allison Kerry (Dina Meyer), who is guilt-ridden over Matthews' disappearance, are called to the scene. Kerry notes that the door to the room was welded shut, breaking Jigsaw's modus operandi of giving his victims a chance to escape. She is abducted from her home that night while reviewing Troy's tape, awakening in a harness hooked into her ribs. Although she is able to unlock it with a key retrieved from a suspended beaker of acid before the timer expires the harness tears her rib cage apart anyway, killing her.

Lynn Denlon (Bahar Soomekh), a depressed doctor, is abducted from her hospital and brought by Amanda to John Kramer (Tobin Bell), who is now bedridden from cancer. Her instructions are to keep John alive until the other victim, Jeff (Angus Macfadyen), has completed his game. As John explains the rules, Amanda locks a collar around Lynn's neck connected to his heart rate monitor: if he dies, or if Lynn moves out of range, it will fire five shotgun shells at her head. As she begins her game, Jeff awakens in a box in an abandoned meatpacking plant and is informed that he must undergo tests which will lead him to "the man responsible for the loss of his child". Flashbacks show that after his son, Dylan (Stefan Georgiou), was killed by a drunk driver three years prior, Jeff became unstable and vengeful towards everyone involved, neglecting his daughter, Corbett (Niamh Wilson), as a result.

Jeff's first test leads him into a meat freezer. Here he finds Danica Scott (Debra Lynne McCabe), who witnessed Dylan's death but refused to testify in court, naked and chained at the wrists between two poles, which begin spraying ice-cold water at random intervals. Though Danica eventually convinces Jeff to help her, she freezes to death before he can retrieve the key. His second test leads him to a large vat, inside which Judge Halden (Barry Flatman), who sentenced his sons killer to six months in prison, is chained at the neck to the bottom. The pit begins slowly filling with liquefied pig corpses, but Jeff reluctantly saves Halden by incinerating his son's toys to retrieve the key. Jeff's third test leads Jeff and Halden to Timothy Young (Mpho Koaho), his son's killer, who is strapped to a machine that twists his limbs one by one until they break. Initially content with watching Timothy suffer, Jeff is eventually convinced by Halden to retrieve the key from a shotgun trigger. Jeff accidentally kills Halden when the shotgun discharges, and Jeff is unable to free Timothy before his neck breaks.

After several unsuccessful attempts to reason with Amanda, Lynn performs an improvised surgery on John to relieve pressure on his brain. During the surgery, he declares his love for Lynn, while hallucinating about his ex-wife (Betsy Russell). Distressed by this, Amanda leaves to continue monitoring Jeff's progress. It is revealed that she continued cutting herself after John's cancer left him bedridden, and flashbacks show her becoming John's protege and kidnapping Adam Stanheight (Leigh Whannell) prior to the first film. After John left him to die, Amanda returned to give Adam a mercy killing out of guilt. In the present, Amanda finds a letter addressed to her, its contents driving her to hysterics. Lynn and John talk privately after the surgery, and Lynn admits that her ordeal has renewed her appreciation for her family. Amanda soon returns with news that Jeff's tests are complete, but refuses to remove Lynn's collar. In the resulting argument, Amanda reveals she has become disillusioned with John's modus operandi and the tests she designed, including Troy's and Kerry's, reflected this. She also reveals that she and Eric Matthews fought when he escaped the bathroom, but she escaped and presumably left him for dead.

Amanda shoots Lynn in the back just as Jeff arrives, who retaliates by shooting her in the neck with a gun provided by John. As Amanda slowly dies, a deeply saddened John reveals that the game was actually hers: aware of the fact that Amanda's traps were inescapable, and unwilling to let an outright murderer continue his legacy, he desperately created a game to test her will for the subjects to live, hiding the fact that Jeff and Lynn were married as a result. After seeing to his wife, Jeff confronts John, who offers him one final test. He tells Jeff to choose between killing him and continuing his obsession with revenge, or forgiving him, offering to call an ambulance for Lynn afterwards. Jeff tells John he forgives him, before slashing his throat with a circular saw. The door to the sickroom seals itself as John plays a final tape message, which reveals that Jeff failed his final test by killing John, the only person who knew Corbett's whereabouts, and in order to save her he must play another game. The tape ends as John dies, and the collar simultaneously activates killing Lynn, leaving Jeff trapped in the sickroom with the three corpses.