2007 / James Wan > In his first foray out of the horror genre, the director of the original Saw takes considerable missteps in portraying a revenge-minded father who’s just seen his son brutally murdered. Though Kevin Bacon puts in an adept effort considering the material, the character evolution is weak and oddly paced. In a film such as this, if you plan on taking your work seriously and not simply using it as a method of violence exploitation, you need a foundation on which to base the spillage of the blood on. However, Wan negates any sort of rationale for what happens, making plot decisions that are muddled and hysterical. At the end, there’s an attempt at teaching the moral behind the futility of revenge, but it’s too little, too obvious and too late.