SawII

The movie opens up with a guy waking up in a room with nothing in it but a TV and a makeup mirror. The pain in his face makes him swivel the mirror so we can see him. His right eye is horribly swollen and purple. He also sees that he's wearing a device around his neck. In front of him is a mask with metal spikes pointed toward his face. It's obvious that this is a spring trap similar to what Amanda wore in the first movie and it's set up to enclose his head like an iron maiden.

The TV pops on and it's the creepy clown toy from the first movie. The toy tells him that the reason why he is here is because he makes a living being an informant, watching other people. He's a snitch. The picture on the TV switches to Michael (the guy) laying on a table and a hooded figure bent over him. The video is of Michael two hours ago, the toy tells him. Then it explains how the device works and that he has only so much time to unlock the device and free himself. He's given a hint. An x-ray of his head. The key is behind his right eye.

Michael pulls away from the chair he's sitting in and pulls out the wire that starts the timer. He sees a toolbox and inside is a scalpel. He tries to cut into his eye, but stops because of the pain. Eventually he runs out of time and the trap snaps shut, killing him.

The next scene is of a Detective Mathews in a police station picking up his son who was arrested for theft. Apparently things are very tense between Mathews and his son, Daniel, because of divorce. Daniel wants to go back to his mom early and, in a fit of pique, his father yells at him to just go. Daniel walks off.

Later Mathews tries to call him to apologize, but gets no answer on Daniel's cell phone. Mathew's sergeant calls him to come down to the crime scene involving his informant. He meets his former partner, Kerry, who needs him to identify the body. Mathews says he just needs to look at his face and Kerry tells him, “Therein lies the problem.” He finds a tattoo on the body and recognizes it. He also examines the body a little and finds the familiar jigsaw piece missing from the skin. He's walking away when Kerry calls after him, “Look closer, Detective Mathews.” He comes back angrily, but Kerry points out the writing on the wall and it reads, “Look closer, Detective Mathews.” (imdb.com says it's Detective Mason, but I swear in the movie it's “Mathews”).

Back at the station he snaps at her for mocking him at the crime scene and refuses to help her with the case because he's too busy with everything going on with his life. That night he's lying in bed not able to sleep because of the case. The words “Look closer, Detective Mathews” echo in his mind. He realizes that on the contraption on his informant's face was stamped an emblem from Wilson Steel.

The next day the police squad, including Kerry and Detective Mathews raid the Wilson Steel factory. The first team up is climbing up stairs enclosed in wire and the pressure on a particular step set off a trap. The creepy clown toy wheels his trike to the top of the stairs and giggles at them. Further pressure on the trap causes wire to swing out and cuts the cop off at the knees and the metal door swings shut trapping the three cops on the stairs. The two cops that had not been hurt by the trap touch the wire and are electrocuted. The other cops swarm the building and find Jigsaw attached to an IV and using an oxygen tent behind a table. They handcuff him and search him. Detective Mathews leans into Jigsaw's face and says, “Is this close enough?” before smiling and walking away telling the team to take him away. Jigsaw tells him that he can't leave until the detective solves his problem. Mathews asks him what he's talking about and Jigsaw tells him his problem is in the other room. Across the room is another fenced in enclosure and the infamous dropcloth. They pull the dropcloth away to reveal four monitors and a timer counting down from one hour and forty-seven minutes. Each monitor shows a different room in a house. There are eight people in one room and one of them is Daniel.

Mathews nearly goes berserk and demands for Jigsaw to tell him what his son is doing there. Jigsaw says it's been a while since he's looked at the monitors, but he bets that Daniel is currently cowering in a corner. He is.

Back in the room six people are just waking up and wondering where they are and what's going on. Their names happen to be: Gus, Jonas, Xavier, Laura, Daniel, Addison, Obi, and Amanda who is currently unconscious on the floor. Gus is dressed in business clothes. Jonas in a fatigue jacket and is trying to wake Amanda up. Xavier is in a sleeveless shirt that shows off heavy muscles. Obi is in layers of clothing, but you can still see his sickly, wiry frame and close-shaven head. Amanda is in patient hospital garb complete with plastic ID bracelet and bandaged wrists. The people are wondering a) where they are, b) who got them there, c) and why is their skin crawling. Most of them are asking each other questions. Only Daniel and Obi are quiet. Amanda wakes up, pukes, but quickly realizes what's happening. She doesn't bother to try to explain it to the others, but starts tearing around the room looking for something. She runs her hands underneath the safe in the middle of the room, along the walls, and across the bricks covering up the fireplace. One of them is loose. She tears out that brick along with a few others and finds what she's been afraid to find, from the look of her shaking hands. There's a letter and a tape recorder. She plays the tape and all hear Jigsaw's voice explaining that they're going to play a game.

They are all breathing in a deadly nerve agent. The kind used in the Tokyo subway attacks. They have two hours to live. In three hours, the door will open up allowing them to be free, but first they have to find the antidote to the toxin. Several antidotes are hidden all over the house. One is in the safe. The combination is in the back of their minds, if they think hard. The order to the numbers will be found “over the rainbow”. Also, “X marks the spot to the answer”. The tape cuts off. Xavier picks up the letter and a key drops out. The letter reads, “Don't use this key to open the door.” Gus and Xavier immediately take the key and put it in lock to the door. Amanda warns them not to do it because the letter said so. Xavier turns the key as Gus tries to look through the peephole. On the other side of the door is a Colt .45 that fires once the key is turned. The back of Gus's head is destroyed and he falls.

Jonas grabs Amanda and demands to know what's going on. She explains that Jigsaw has them. Jonas doesn't know who that is, but Addison does. She calls him a serial killer and Amanda defends him and says that he wants them to survive, but they have to play by the rules.

Back at Jigsaw's place Mathews asks what he wants to let his son go. Jigsaw tells him very clearly that he wants to play a game. The rules are simple. He just wants to talk with Mathews. If he talks long enough, he'll find his son in a safe and secure place. However, Jigsaw only wants to talk with Mathews. Everybody else has to clear out. Mathews has a problem with this, but Jigsaw assures him that the police can stay in the building; they just have to get out of earshot. Kerry, meanwhile, has come up with a plan to trace the video feed to find out where the people are. They're just waiting on the tech people. Mathews disarms himself after learning about this and decides to try to play the game. He sits down at Jigsaw's table and discreetly slips off his radio after setting it on Speak. In the back of the room at the monitors, Kerry is listening to the entire conversation.

First Jigsaw introduces himself as John and he's a cancer patient. Mathews calls him “Jigsaw” and John rejects that moniker as it was made up by the press and the police, but not by him. He selected people he found to be unworthy of life and cut out the little jigsaw piece to demonstrate that they were not complete people. They were missing something.

He doesn't fear anything that Mathews can do to him because he can't possibly be in any more pain. As he talks, he implies that he knows all about Mathews use of excessive force to extract confessions. He also implies that he's trying to help Mathews by making him feel alive again. Because of John, Mathews is now back in action instead of being stuck behind a desk. Because of John, Mathews is realizing how deeply he loves his son. Although this is all obvious because of how John carefully explains it, even asking Mathews questions about how he felt about his son before he realized he might die, Mathews doesn't accept any of it and continues to demand to know where his son is.

Back at the house the door to the room opens. The group carefully walks through it. Xavier finds a baseball bat with nails sticking out of it and picks it up as a weapon. He brazenly walks through the hallway until he finds a set of couple doors with the word “EXIT” sprayed across them in red paint. He starts bashing at it, but once he knocks down some of the wood of the doors, we find bars outside. Addison mocks him and Xavier comes after her. Jonas separates them and tries to establish some peace. He sees a prison tattoo on Xavier's arm and asks him if he was in Juliette (?) a prison. Xavier says he was and apparently Jonas was, too. Before any actual repoire can be established, Laura interrupts to say she found a door. It leads to the basement. Amanda is methodically searching everything to try to find more clues, but she follows the group down the stairs.

By this time, Addison has started to cough up blood. Everybody's getting paler and weaker.

It looks like a cellar/boiler room and there's a figure in a chair covered in a dropcloth. They pull the dropcloth off and find a mannequin with a knife sticking out of its chest. Attached to the knife is an envelope marked “Obi”. That's when the skinny guy speaks up and says it's his name. They play the tape inside and Jigsaw talks to Obi, knowing the others are listening. He tells them that inside the contraption in the middle of the room are two antidotes. One is for Obi for bringing him the others. The other Obi can donate, but it comes as a price. Laura freaks out as she remembers that Obi was in the backseat of her car and chloroformed her and she woke up in the room. Xavier threatens Obi with the knife to climb in the long coffin-like metal tube to get the antidotes. Obi presses Xavier's knife to his throat and cuts himself, showing that he's not afraid. He agrees to get the antidote, but only if he gets his. He climbs in and finds a syringe attached to a chain. He pulls it off and looks for the second one. It's suspended far above him. He pulls on it and the door to the oven shuts and locks and the jets turn on. The others try to get him out, but the handle of the oven is too hot to force. Inside Obi sees a drawing of a devil pointing to a valve and the word “twist”, but the flames are too hot for him to reach it. On the other side of the oven, Xavier smashes through the glass window to try to free Obi, but he cooks trying to force himself through. Xavier searches his hand, but it's empty. He's furious, but Amanda calmly goes back upstairs to continue searching.

John tells Mathews about dying. That's when his philosophy of life began. People who don't know when they're going to die, don't appreciate life fully, but those who do begin to see the simpler things and appreciate them more. Turns out John's oncologist was Dr. Lawrence Gordon.

John didn't start taking action on his philosophy until the night he tried to kill himself. He drove his car off a cliff and survived. He thought it was ironic that his body was not strong enough to fight off cancer cells, but it could survive a crash. He literally walked away determined to teach others the value of life.

Daniel lowers Laura into a corner. She's weakening fast. Amanda begins to rip up couch cushions. Daniel asks her about her experience with Jigsaw and she tells him the stuff from the first movie. He doesn't understand why he would kidnap her again so she shows him her wrists and explains that she wasn't being very good to herself. He looks at her arms and they're clean, so he asks her how long she'd been using. She tells him she started in prison and she was in prison because she had been arrested for possession. Daniel doesn't know how that's possible. She laughs and tells him to ask the cop who arrested her. Daniel almost lets it slip that his dad is a cop, but instinct tells him that this would be a bad idea.

They find a door to another room, but it's stuck. Addison can't force it open, so Xavier shoves her aside and starts pushing on it. Amanda warns them that if it's hard to open then it's probably a trap. She's right, but they don't listen. The door is attached by a wire to a timer on another door (this one made out of steel) across the room. Xavier forces it open and starts the timer from three minutes and counting down. On a hook suspended from the ceiling is an envelope labeled “Xavier”. As they play it, they find out Xavier's a drug dealer and that Jigsaw wants to teach him a lesson based on his “occupation” which Jigsaw calls “giving hope to the desperate”. While the tape plays, Daniel finds a large dropcloth, which he pulls aside to find a bare spring bed. Underneath is a pit filled with used hypodermic needles. The key is buried inside. Xavier picks up Amanda and throws her in. She screams from the pain, but starts digging with Xavier shouting at her to hurry up. She finally finds the key, but Xavier turns it literally a second too late and the steel bars snap shut, forever. Daniel helps Amanda out and starts pulling out the needles buried in her. Xavier wants to kill her, but Jonas stops him.

Mathews leaves the table. John tells him to remember the rules, but Mathews goes back to the monitors. Kerry urges him to listen to John, but John is way too angry. She tells him to try a psychological trick and threaten to destroy John's work. Obviously it's very important to him. Mathews goes back and starts tearing up John's plans and blueprints. John just watches and questions whether he'll need that stuff as evidence to convict him. Mathews says he doesn't need it and John agrees, knowing Mathews methods. We find out that Mathews plants evidence to get his convictions. He beats up suspects, plants evidence, and uses informants. What a jerk. It's hard to feel sorry for him.

Addison, Laura, Amanda and Daniel walk down another hallway. Laura collapses and Amanda cradles her in her lap. Xavier goes back to the original room with the safe dragging the bat behind him. The nails in the bat drag off the coat Daniel used to cover up Gus's head. Xavier starts to put it back on and notices something. On the back of Gus's neck is written “2”. He then realizes what Jigsaw meant about the combination being “in the back of their minds”. Jonas comes into the room and tries to talk to Xavier. Xavier doesn't want to talk and attacks Jonas. Jonas gets the upper-hand and beats the crap out of Xavier, but has to stop once he starts puking up blood. Xavier buries the bat in the back of Jonas's head and looks at the back of his neck. There's a “16” written there. He takes off realizing what he needs to do now.

Tearing up John's work isn't getting through to him. In fact, John just provokes Mathews further by telling him to look in the drawer in the desk the other policemen are in. He knows they've been listening. Inside the drawer are the case files of all the people in the room. People that Mathews planted evidence on to get convictions. This finally makes Mathews snap. He decides to do things his way and starts tearing up John himself. John laughs and says, “This is the police work you got medals for.” Mathews breaks John's finger, throws him to the ground and stomps on him.

Looking up from Amanda's lap, Laura sees an X in the cracks on a picture. She points it out and Addison rips it off the wall. On the back of the picture is a photograph of Daniel and Mathews. On the back is written “Father and Son”. Amanda and Addison recognize Mathews as the cop that framed them. Laura goes into convulsions and dies. Addison takes off in one direction and Amanda in another leaving Daniel alone. Amanda hears Xavier shouting for them and runs back to Daniel grabbing him and pulling him along.

Addison finds a room with a glass box suspended just above head level. Inside is a hypodermic syringe sticking straight up beside two holes just big enough for her hands. There's also a tape in an envelope, but she throws it aside. She reaches inside the box and we see that the hole is surrounded by metal on hinges that bend only one way in a twisted sort of Chinese handcuff sort of way. She'll be able to slip her hands in, but won't be able to pull them out. She's smart at only putting one hand in first, but when she grabs the needle and pulls, the plunger stays fixed in place and she ends up pulling the syringe off the plunger and spilling the contents inside the box. She reaches her other hand inside to try to get some of the contents and then realizes that she can't get them out. Pulling on them only starts them cutting into her wrists.

Xavier goes downstairs to get the number “11” off of Obi's neck and then finds an “8” on Laura's neck. He finds Addison and pulls her hair aside to find her number, but I forgot what I was. He then just leaves her there to bleed to death while she screams curses at him.

Daniel and Amanda run to the room with the safe and find Jonas's body. Xavier gets to the door and tries to smash it down. While blocking the door with their backs, Amanda sees that the blood from Jonas has pooled around a door in the floor. She uses the bat to block the door while she and Daniel move the safe. The door is locked, but the key from in the beginning opens it. They go downstairs just as Xavier bursts in armed with his knife.

Mathews forces his gun into John's mouth and demands one more time to find out where his son is. John finally says, “Game over. I'll take you to the house.” He keeps glancing over at the tech team that finally made it and are starting a trace on the video feed. Since John says he'll take Mathews and only him, Mathews goes down the freight elevator with John leaving his team behind.

The stairs opens up into another long badly lit hallway. Apparently there's a rotten smell as even Amanda has to stop to cover up her nose. She and Daniel run down it with Xavier in pursuit until they get to a large metal door. They slide it back and find a light switch. Familiar fluorescent lights come on illuminating a large tiled room with two mummified corpses and a single mummified foot. This will only make sense if you've seen the first movie. Apparently Adam didn't make it, which most likely ensures us that Dr. Gordon didn't, either. He's not in the room, though.

Daniel slides down a wall and closes his eyes. Amanda frantically tries to wake him up. Xavier staggers into the room. He tells Amanda what he needs, the numbers in the backs of their necks. She tells him that he needs her to tell him his number. He looks around for a reflective surface and even tries to use his knife to see, but it's not enough. Finally he reaches back and starts slicing through the meat in his neck to slice off the number. He puts it in his pocket and comes after Daniel who surprises us by slamming his foot into Xavier's knee and slashing him across the throat with a discarded hacksaw.

The tech team trace the video feed to an address. The team heads out there, but since Mathews has thrown away his radio and forgot to bring his cell phone there's no way to tell him. Mathews is in a van driving with John and punches him to get him to tell directions. John directs him to the house. Before Mathews jumps out, John peels back the tape holding his IV needle in place and gives him a key to use once he's in the house. Mathews uses it to unlock a gate inside the house and runs in with his flashlight and gun calling Daniel's name.

The team breaks into the house and swarm it. Kerry is back with the monitors and radios to the team leader that she cannot see them on the cameras. They find more monitors and VCRs attached to them. The feed is not live.

Mathews runs down the stairs into the death room finding Xavier's corpse, the mummified corpses, and a hand draped over the bathtub. He stumbles toward it slowly certain that he's looking at Daniel's body. It's covered in a strange black and red robe. He touches it and the pig mask jumps out and stabs him in the leg with a syringe. He goes unconscious almost immediately.

Back at the original monitor room Kerry watches the timer run out. A safe opens inside the room. Kerry looks inside to find Daniel on oxygen and alive. Remember John had said if Mathews talked to him long enough he'd find Daniel in a “safe and secure place”. If only Mathews had listened…

Mathews wakes up. His flashlight and gun are where he dropped them, but he's been moved. He can only reach a tape recorder by his side. He plays the tape and hears…Amanda's voice.

Amanda tells him that she was guilty of a lot of things, but not what he arrested her for. In prison is where she started using drugs and by using drugs she met Jigsaw. He saved her life by threatening to take it from her. Through him she found a savior and a father figure. He taught her about death and life. She will carry on his work once she dies, which explains why he was so unconcerned with Mathew's threat of destruction, and says that he is her first test subject. She'll teach him what she went through laying in a dark room all alone. As the tape finishes, Amanda appears at the door. “Game over,” she says as she slides it shut.