Saw
In the 2004 film Saw , Adam is introduced as a freelance photographer who is making a living by spying on others and taking photos of them for money. Adam was working for discharged police detective David Tapp (Danny Glover), who (using the name "Bob") hired Adam to observe oncologist Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) for $200 a night, as Tapp had suspected Dr. Gordon of being the Jigsaw Killer, a serial killer who put his victims in traps putting people in deadly scenarios. However, Adam's work would make him a target of John Kramer (Tobin Bell), the actual Jigsaw Killer.
"Rise and shine, Adam. You're probably wondering where you are. I'll tell you where you might be. You might be in the room that you die in. Up until now you simply sat in the shadows watching others live out their lives. But what do voyeurs see when they look into the mirror? Now, I see you as a strange mix of someone angry, yet apathetic. But mostly just pathetic. So are you going to watch yourself die today, Adam, or do something about it?"
— Adam's tape left to him by the Jigsaw Killer in Saw
At the beginning of the movie, Adam awakens in a large dilapidated industrial bathroom alongside Dr. Gordon. They were both chained by their ankles in opposite corners of the bathroom where in the middle of the room was a supposed dead corpse laying in a pool of blood, with a revolver in one hand, and a tape recorder in the other. Both men would later find envelopes in their pockets containing microcassette tapes, with Adam retrieving the tape recorder so they could listen to their tapes. Adam's tape urges him to survive, while Dr. Gordon's tape says that he must kill Adam by six o'clock or else his wife Alison (Monica Potter) and his daughter Diana (Makenzie Vega) would be murdered and Dr. Gordon himself would be left to die in the bathroom. Dr. Gordon's tape ended with whispering that said 'Follow your heart'. They find a heart symbol drawn on a toilet near Adam, leading to Adam finding a bag containing two hacksaws. The pair try to saw through their chains, but Adam's saw breaks, and Lawrence's attempts are unsuccessful as well. This leads Dr. Gordon to deducing that him and Adam have been abducted by the Jigsaw Killer, whom Dr. Gordon knows about as he was once a suspect.
Adam's distrust towards Dr. Gordon would start growing. Therefore, he picked up a glass shard and threatened Dr. Gordon with it, saying he would cut him if he didn't tell Adam what was going on. However, Adam noticed the glass shard belonged to a one-way mirror. He threw pieces of broken tile from the floor at the mirror, destroying the glass completely to reveal a hidden camera. Soon after, Dr. Gordon wanted to show Adam a photo of his daughter Diana. He says his favorite photo was at the back of his wallet, however, Adam finds a photo of Alison and Diana gagged up which he hides from Dr. Gordon. On the back of the picture, a clue said: "X marks the spot. Sometimes you see more with your eyes shut."
Later on, Adam suddenly asked Dr. Gordon to turn off the bathroom lights. They find a lit-up "X" sign painted on the wall with Dr. Gordon using his hacksaw to break part of the wall off only to find a small box inside the hollow space. The box contained a cellphone, two cigarettes, a lighter and a note that said the cigarettes were harmless and that he didn't a gun to kill Adam. Adam asks for the cigarette but is ignored by Dr. Gordon, who tries to use the cellphone to call the police, which is unsuccessful, as the phone is designed so it could only receive calls and not make them. Dr. Gordon becomes increasingly suspicious of Adam. He wanted to know how Adam knew to turn off the lights, which causes them to have an argument. Adam finally shows Dr. Gordon the photo of Alison and Diana gagged up, which makes Dr. Gordon worry about the safety of his wife and child. After a brief silence, Dr. Gordon tries to come up with an escape plan. He turns off the lights and whispers to Adam to play along with the plan, which consists of him giving Adam the cigarette from the box, Adam smoking it, and then faking his death. They carried out the plan, and it first looked as if they had succeeded, but Adam randomly received an electric shock from his chain. This causes Dr. Gordon to get angry at Adam and blame him for the failure of their escape route. However, this also causes Adam to remember his abduction; he returned home to develop his photos of Dr. Gordon in his darkroom only to fall asleep and find a puppet in his apartment when the lights went out and was then subsequently attacked by someone with a pigmask.
After Adam explains his abduction, the cellphone suddenly rang. Dr. Gordon answered the phone to the voice of his wife Alison, who told him not to believe Adam's lies and that Adam knew everything about him prior to now. Dr. Gordon confronts Adam about what he really knew, with Adam finally admitting that he had been paid to spy and secretly photograph Dr. Gordon and also showed him photos he took of Dr. Gordon that were in the bag that Adam found the hacksaws in but hid. He also revealed that he had knowledge of Dr. Gordon's affair with one of his medical students whom he had visited the night he was abducted, with Dr. Gordon deducing that the affair is the reason why he is being tested. Dr. Gordon then asks Adam who hired him to take the photos. He initially is unable to get anything out of him, but when Adam describes the person as "a tall black guy who has a scar around his neck", Lawrence deduces the person to be that of Detective Tapp who had become obsessed with the idea that Dr. Gordon was Jigsaw after his partner, Detective Steven Sing (Ken Leung), was killed a few months earlier. After Adam accuses Dr. Gordon of cheating on his wife, this causes the two men to have yet another argument, with Dr. Gordon insisting he did not cheat on her.
After the pair went into another brief silence, Adam notices that one of the pictures was not taken by him and had a man in it staring out a window. Dr. Gordon recognises this man as Zep Hindle (Michael Emerson), an orderly at his hospital who is the one monitoring the two on the cameras and is holding Alison and Diana Gordon hostage, leading them to believe Zep is Jigsaw. However, Adam realises that it is now six o'clock and the game is now over. The cellphone rings again and to Dr. Gordon's surprise, it was Alison who called him after freeing herself from Zep. Only moments later, he also hears several gunshots and the desperate screams of his daughter, Diana. Dr. Gordon starts to have a mental breakdown, but suddenly loses consciousness after receiving an electric shock from his shackle, similarly to how Adam did earlier. He soon regained consciousness and the cellphone rung again but was now out of reach, which made Dr. Gordon panic even more. Adam desperately tried to calm him down but the doctor refused to listen and in a last-ditched attempt to save his family, grabbed the hacksaw and began to saw his foot off, with Adam screaming with horror in the background. After freeing himself from the chains, Dr. Gordon crawls to the middle of the room and takes the revolver from the corpse and, despite Adam's pleas not to shoot him, shoots Adam in the shoulder, causing him to fall immediately. Moments later, Zep opens the door and enters the bathroom. He examines Adam's body and prepares himself to kill Dr. Gordon, telling him that he was too late and "it's the rules". However, Adam (who survived being shot) attacks Zep and brings him down to the floor. After a brief wrestle for Zep's gun, Adam disarms his enemy and bludgeons him to death with a toilet tank lid, believing him to be their captor. After killing Zep, Adam begins sobbing due to his shoulder injury. Lawrence tells Adam he must leave and get help, and that he would bleed to death if he stayed with him. Despite Adam's efforts to make him stay, Dr. Gordon slowly crawls out of the bathroom, promising Adam that he would bring someone back.
After Dr. Gordon leaves, Adam searches Zep's body a key only to find a tape recorder, which reveals that Zep was not Jigsaw and the killer himself had poisoned him and to get the antidote, he had to kill Alison and Diana Gordon in the event Dr. Gordon failed his test. After this tape ends, the "dead corpse" rises from the floor and reveals himself as John Kramer, the actual Jigsaw Killer in a twist ending. He tells Adam that the key to chain is in the bathtub, but Adam remembers pulling the plug when he first woke up at the beginning of the film, drowning the key. Adam tries to shoot John with Zep's gun, but John incapacitates him with another electric shock. Afterwards, John switched off the lights and reached towards the door. Adam screamed his lungs out as John slammed the door shut, leaving Adam to die in the bathroom, with his screams carrying on in the end credits. His ultimate fate is left a mystery.
