Dr Gordon in Saw: Lawrence Gordon, Actor and Fate

Dr. Lawrence Gordon is an oncologist who wakes up in a filthy bathroom in saw 2004, directed by James Wan, with his ankle chained to a pipe. Cary Elwes plays him, and the cast lists him as Lawrence Gordon in that film and as Dr. Gordon in saw 3d (2010), directed by Kevin Greutert. Elwes is billed second in the first film and fourth in the sequel.

He shares the room with Adam, a photographer played by Leigh Whannell, and a dead man lying between them with a revolver and a microcassette recorder. The tapes give Lawrence a simple and brutal instruction: kill Adam before 6:00, or his wife Alison and his daughter Diana will die. The man behind the game is the Jigsaw Killer, who tests people's will to live through deadly traps, and the hacksaws in the toilet cistern hint at how a person might get free.

That setup carries the whole film. Saw (2004) cost about $1.2 million to make and took more than $104 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo, which is a lot of return for two actors chained in one room. If you are new to the series, the saw movies in order guide shows where he sits, and the saw characters page covers everyone else.

The real villain in Saw is John Kramer, the Jigsaw Killer, who is the supposed corpse on the bathroom floor. He stands up at the end of the film, shocks Adam through the chain and seals the door.

Zep Hindle, played by Michael Emerson, is the person Lawrence and Adam believe is the threat. He holds Alison and Diana, and he enters the bathroom to finish Lawrence. A tape later shows that Zep was also a victim, forced to obey Jigsaw to get an antidote to a slow poison. That makes him a pawn rather than the architect of the game.

Adam is the closest relationship in the film, and a tense one. The two men are chained in the same room, they trade accusations about Tapp and the affair, and in the end Lawrence shoots Adam. Adam survives the shot and beats Zep to death with the toilet tank lid.

His family is the pressure behind every choice. Alison, played by Monica Potter, and Diana, played by Makenzie Vega, are the stakes of the 6:00 deadline. Tapp, played by Danny Glover, is the detective who saves them, and Amanda, played by Shawnee Smith, is the survivor whose testimony Lawrence once saw. In Saw 3D the ties change again: he leads two masked helpers and captures Mark Hoffman. See john kramer saw, amanda young saw, mark hoffman saw and adam saw for those characters in full.

In my opinion, Gordon's best moment is the opening of Saw (2004), when he and Adam wake up and read the room. A bathroom with two chained men and a body is about as lean as a horror setup gets, and Elwes plays the dread of a man trying to stay logical.

My second pick is the 6:00 deadline. Lawrence does not kill Adam, and the foot sequence that follows lands because the hacksaws in the cistern were planted so carefully. It could be argued that the real horror is his belief that his family is dead, because he hears only gunshots, exactly as the audience does.

Third is the Saw 3D reveal. The return of Dr. Gordon is the film's best callback, and putting Hoffman in the original bathroom closes a loop. It also contrasts neatly with eric matthews saw, who is left locked in that room at the end of Saw II. Eric is a victim of the room, whereas Gordon uses it deliberately, and that is the difference between a victim and a jailer. Perhaps the most telling detail is that the hacksaw is thrown away rather than left behind.

If you want to see both appearances back to back, start with saw 2004 and finish with saw 3d. The saw traps page covers the bathroom trap among the series' other set pieces.