Grade: B+

Verdict: Kevin Bacon proves (yet again) he's one of the most underrated actors working today.

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
Cox News Service

An edgy, brave first film by Nicole Kassell, "The Woodsman" doesn't ask us to have sympathy for the devil. It asks if sympathy is even possible.

The "devil" here is Walter (Kevin Bacon), a convicted child molester who's returned to his old neighborhood after 12 years in prison. He soon learns nothing has been forgotten -- or forgiven, except by his brother-in-law, Carlos (well played by a decidedly un-dashing and definitely Latino Benjamin Bratt), who still talks to him.

An accomplished woodworker, Walter is limited to a job at a lumberyard, where he meets tough gal Vickie (Kyra Sedgwick, Bacon's real-life spouse). The only apartment he can find overlooks an elementary schoolyard; it's not his idea of the best location, but no one else would rent to him.

The picture's near-clinical approach to Walter -- a kind of watchful curiosity, more than anything else -- may be offensive to those who don't view pedophilia as having shades of gray. Instead of ignoring that sentiment, Kassell plays into it -- willfully reminding us that Walter may seem like a sympathetic guy, but he is also a predator. Someone who preyed on young girls and probably would like to again.

When he begins a tentative romance with Vickie, we see in his eyes his struggle to shift his sexual energy to an adult woman and away from his preferred object of desire. And when he sits down with an 11-year-old girl in a deserted park, the scene is devastating -- as troubling as it is nerve-wracking.

At times, the movie settles for easy outs. Just as the deranged serial killer on the loose in "The Silence of the Lambs" made Anthony Hopkins seem almost fatherly by comparison, so another pedophile is too conveniently hanging around the schoolyard. And would his parole officer (a strong Mos Def) really agree to Walter living in a room with that particular view?

Still, this is a gutsy little film, intense and interestingly acted. Epecially by Bacon, whose haunted, unsettling performance treads a fine line between victim and villain (actually, he's neither).

In last year's "Mystic River," Bacon's performance as one of the movie's Boston buddies was every bit as good as Tim Robbins' and a lot better than Sean Penn's. They both won Oscars. Bacon wasn't even nominated. Just as he wasn't nominated for "A Few Good Men," "Apollo 13" or "JFK."

When it comes to the Oscars and other film awards, Bacon may be the most undervalued actor working today. Perhaps "The Woodsman" can change that.