Adam Saw: Who Adam Stanheight Is and What Happens to Him

Adam Stanheight is a photographer who wakes in a filthy bathroom with his ankle chained to a pipe, and he is one of the two men at the center of Saw (2004), directed by James Wan. The other is Dr. Lawrence Gordon, an oncologist played by Cary Elwes. Between them lies a dead man holding a revolver and a microcassette recorder, and each man has a tape of his own. Adam's tape tells him to survive, while Lawrence's tells him to kill Adam by 6:00 or his wife and daughter will die.

Who played Adam Stanheight? Leigh Whannell plays Adam, and he is billed first in Saw (2004), ahead of Cary Elwes as Lawrence Gordon and Tobin Bell as Jigsaw. The credits list Whannell as Adam again in Saw III (2006), directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, where he is billed seventh.

Adam is the audience's way into the film, because he knows no more than we do about why he is there. He turns out to be less innocent than he looks, since he admits that Detective Tapp (played by Danny Glover) paid him to spy on Lawrence. That makes him a watcher who has been watched in return. For the wider ensemble, see the saw cast and saw characters pages.

Adam's closest tie is to Dr. Lawrence Gordon, the man chained across the room from him, and their bond runs from distrust to a rough alliance and back to violence. What links them is that each has something to hide: Lawrence has the affair, and Adam has the paid surveillance job for Detective Tapp. Lawrence has his own profile at dr gordon saw.

The tie Adam understands last is the one to John Kramer. Kramer, also known as Jigsaw, is in the room as the apparent corpse, and he decides the outcome. He tells Adam the key to his chain went down the drain when Adam emptied the tub. For the man behind the traps, see john kramer saw.

Zep Hindle, played by Michael Emerson, is the captor Adam identifies from a photograph and later kills. The tape Adam finds afterward shows Zep was also under Jigsaw's control, forced to obey in order to get an antidote to a slow poison. Amanda Young, played by Shawnee Smith, reaches the story through Lawrence's flashback, where he sees her testimony as a rare survivor of Jigsaw's traps. Her own arc is at amanda young saw.

Why did Jigsaw choose Adam? The film states Lawrence's reason outright, the affair. For Adam, the nearest evidence is that he is a photographer who took money to spy on a man. In my opinion, that makes him a voyeur who sits comfortably in the game's moral scheme, though the film leaves the reading to the viewer.

Adam's best moment, in my opinion, is the tank lid scene, because it is the one time a character in the room beats the film's expectations. Lawrence has shot him and the viewer has been led to think Adam is down. Then Zep walks in to finish the job, and Adam, who looked dead on the tiles, gets up and kills him with the nearest heavy object. It works because the room has been set up so carefully that a toilet lid becomes a weapon.

A second favorite is the early tape scene, when Adam and Lawrence play their recordings and realize they have been given opposite instructions. Adam is told to survive and Lawrence is told to kill him. The film runs on the gap between those two messages, and Leigh Whannell plays the panic with a convincing lack of polish. It could be argued that the performance carries more of the first half than the plot does.

The third is the reveal that closes the film. When Kramer rises from the floor, the viewer's attention goes to him, but Adam, still chained, is the one who has to face him, and Kramer shocks him through the chain moments later. If you are new to the series, watch Saw (2004) first, then use saw movies ranked to choose where to go next.