SAW (2004)

Two unlucky men find themselves in a really horrible place. That’s right...a Will Smith movie marathon. No, I’m just kidding. They weren’t that unlucky! Two unlucky men find themselves chained up in a dingy, fucked up industrial-looking bathroom.  Complete with a poo-filled toilet.  After talking for awhile and assessing that neither one of them can accurately throw an object over three feet, they discover that their lives are connected.  They're also given the message, by their mysterious captor, that if the one guy doesn't kill the other guy in a certain amount of time, the captor will murder the first guy's family.  All kinds of flashbacks and crazy shit happens next.

For a low-budget horror movie, SAW is a pretty impressive film.  The basic story is similar enough to SEVEN that it could almost be seen as a spin-off or imitation told from a different point of view, good pace, solid acting by an impressive cast, low amount of actual on-screen violence, an excellent musical score by Charlie Clouser (that's well worth listening to on it's own), creepy lighting and a very interesting villain, Jigsaw, who's completely different from other memorable horror movie icons like Leatherface, Chucky or Jason.

Another thing that I appreciate about SAW is just how much fun the entire series ended up being!  I've seen them all before, but when I sat down to watch the first one for this review...I ended up watching all eight of the films in a row and had an absolute blast!  It was great.  There's a few standout sequels (2 and 8), but overall, they're all fun.  No duds.  A few films (2 and 5) even come off like gnarly reality game shows!

Yeah, the story is totally unbelievable and dumb, but who gives a fuck?  Life is a pile of shit and a lie-filled hell from birth until release, so why not enjoy yourself and watch some goofy movies that make you laugh?  For anybody out there watching the entire series in order: whenever the Jigsaw puppet shows up on a television, right before he speaks, yell out "'ello, guvna!" It makes absolutely no sense, but is highly enjoyable.

Part 2 - Saw II (2005)
Part 3 - Saw III (2006)
Part 4 - Saw IV (2007)
Part 5 - Saw V (2008)
Part 6 - Saw VI (2009)
Part 7 - Saw 3D (2010)
Part 8 - Jigsaw (2017)
Part 9 - Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)
Part 10 - Saw X (2023)

FAST FIVE (2011)

"Buster."

Awww yeah, boi!  Everybody's favorite gang, excuse me, "family" of anarchist, sociopath thieves is back and willing to kill and maim as many people as it takes to not get a day job.

This time around the gang is in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  They pull off a car theft job, but things don't go as planned and before you can say "The laws of physics can suck my gear shift!" our heroes have both the American DEA and a local Brazilian drug lord (who owns the police) hot on their chiseled butt cheeks. It's all very silly, 1,000% unbelievable and...entertaining as fuck!!!  I don't even know how many times I've seen this goofy motherfucker.  A lot.  It's so goddamn crazy.  It seems the filmmakers decided to (wisely) transition the franchise away from the street racing aspect and into the more cartoonish heist caper story.  And it works.  Another wise decision was the addition of Dwayne Johnson as the main DEA agent tracking down the Toretto crime family.  His character is sooo over the top, it's hilarious.  This is the manliest motherfucker on the planet.  Even in scenes where nobody else is sweating, he's literally dripping sweat from just being so badass all the time.

Insanely quick pace that makes the 131-minute runtime fly by, overacting perfection, actors who are different heights looking eye to eye, Rio made to look like it's mainly made of up criminals, extremely impressive stunt work (FF is worth watching just for the stunts alone), lots of shooting and explosions, music, a lot of serious gear shifting with a purpose, beautiful locations and scenery...and some random warehouse locations, the world's strongest metal cable, funny / cheesy dialogue about honor and prayer while planning a robbery, exploding toilets, at least a hundred car wrecks.

Overall, FAST FIVE is fun as fook.  Total junk food Cinema and awesome. I've thought about double-featuring FAST FIVE with DHOOM 2, but was afraid the Universe might implode in on it's own unmanly butthole.

Part 1 - The Fast and the Furious (2001)
Part 2 - 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
Part 3 - The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)
Part 4 - Fast & Furious (2009)
Part 6 - Fast & Furious 6 (2013)
Part 7 - Furious 7 (2015)
Part 8 - The Fate of the Furious (2017)
Spin-off 1 - Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)
Part 9 - F9 (2021)
Part 10 - Fast X (2023)