Spiral - Film Review

Earlier this month, my brain must have become addled as I became nostalgic for revisiting the Saw movies. I'm not sure why I felt this way as arguably none (but maybe the first film) are all that good. When I heard about this film coming out, I had a bit of hope for the franchise as I figured Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson would turn the page in a series more regarded as "torture porn" than actually quality horror. Sadly, these two great actors join Danny Glover's fate as victims of a movie franchise that should've stayed dead after James Wan's initial entry.

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Where You Can Find It: I saw this on Amazon Video where it is available for rent/purchase, but it is also available to all Starz subscribers. Please note that this film is also sometimes referred to as "Spiral: From the Book of Saw."

General Information 
Spiral is a thriller mystery film that was released on 14 May 2021. It was directed by Darren Lynn Bousman and was co-written by Josh Stolberg and Peter Goldfinger. Jordan Oram provided the cinematography for this film, and Charlie Clouser did the scoring. Twisted Pictures handled production with Lionsgate distributing. Interestingly enough, it's worth mentioning that Bousman has been responsible for the first three sequels to the Saw franchise (Saw II, Saw III, and Saw IV). With a budget of $20 million, Spiral accrued roughly $40 million at the box office. Critically, it was poorly received with a less-than-stellar 40 Metascore on Metacritic along with a slightly worse 37% Tomatometer rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

The Story
After the brutal death of an NYPD detective in a New York City subway tunnel, disenfranchised homicide detective, Zeke Banks (played by Chris Rock), takes on the task of tracking down those responsible. It doesn't take long before Zeke and his new partner, Detective Schenk (Max Minghella), discover that the murder is seemingly connected to the now-deceased Jigsaw killer. Someone new has taken up the Jigsaw mantle and is directing all of their focus at the NYPD homicide division. Zeke will have to move quickly to figure out who this copycat killer is before the bodies pile up and he's forced to play an unwinnable game.

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Zeke better track down this killer before the whole town runs out of red spray paint

With the exception of arguably the first two Saw films, the franchise has never been all that particularly interesting, so I was curious to see what a soft reboot might look like with a new cast of characters and new direction. Unfortunately, it seems as though nothing new has been learned since the last film released. The film's world appears to operate in an unchanging vacuum where all the characters have seemingly held the exact same job position, mentality, and behavior during the twelve-year span it covers. When characters start to get killed off, it's seemingly met with indifference from most others with the small exception being Zeke.

Like many of its series' forebears, Spiral attempts to present itself as much smarter than it actually is by giving a standard Saw "gotcha" climax that falls completely on its face in both execution and design. The identity of the killer is predictable to the point of where it almost felt too easy to spot while the portion where the mastermind unveils their grand scheme felt wholly underwhelming. I found myself caring less and less as the narrative went on, and by the end I found myself cursing at the screen and glad to be rid of it when the credits rolled.

A major theme of this film is its take on police misconduct; however, this theme is approached with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. There are some great films on U.S. police misconduct that present such a controversial topic appropriately like Training Day, Serpico, and even The Departed, but Spiral seems to want the kudos for addressing the subject without putting in much effort. Most of Zeke's police coworkers are cartoonishly villainous to the point of where they commit unprovoked homicides in broad daylight with zero consequences. There's certainly nothing wrong with having a film cover topics like misconduct or excessive force, but it essentially flops here.

 

Special Effects/Atmosphere

One of the main reasons why people keep coming back to the Saw movies is because of the elaborate traps the killer(s) uses on their victims. Viewers will get a chance to see a handful more of those contraptions in this film too, but they seemingly lack the gravitas of previous films while also feeling even more impractical than ever before. One of the devices involved the victim losing large quantities of blood, but it seems that the set designer wasn't paying attention to how much blood should be on display in the grand reveal as the victim had seemingly lost multiple gallons. The fact that one of the characters actually mentions that there's only 1.5 gallons of blood in a typical human being makes this error even more aggravating.

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The torture devices are as overly complex as the previous movies

This may be a bit of a nitpick, but the makeup design was noticeably awful and warrants mentioning. There are portions of the film that occur via flashback and Bousman shows this by attempting to present the involved characters with differing features from their current-day counterparts. Bousman certainly succeeds in establishing the contrast, but the fake facial hair looks atrociously bad. Samuel L. Jackson looks like someone crudely glued a piece of an old carpet to his upper lip, and Chris Rock's goatee looks freakishly unnatural.

 

The Acting

I generally love seeing Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson in films, and I think it's fair to say that the two are arguably the best parts of the film, but even they struggle in this. It's clear Rock is passionate about this film and I applaud him for trying so hard, but the best scenes he's in is when he's essentially just playing himself. The opening segment where he gives a lengthy monologue about Forrest Gump was totally unrelated to the film, but hilarious to see. Jackson effectively plays himself as well and felt underutilized in this. Lastly, although they both are accomplished actors, I felt like the two had absolutely no chemistry despite portraying a father-son duo.

I really like Marisol Nichols in Riverdale as she's got a knack for portraying characters that are in control of their emotions and subtle. Unfortunately, that talent isn't really used here as she presents that stereotypical police boss that yells at their detectives for not playing by the book. Throughout the entire film, I never found her to be believable as a police captain. I hope the next film she's in lets her play to her strengths as I know she can do better.

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The best performers are underutilized in this, with Nichols being the most egregious

I haven't seen Minghella in anything before, but this film certainly didn't give me a good impression of him. If Nichols wasn't believable as a character, Minghella just felt as though he'd shown up to the wrong set. Detective Schenk came off as more of a bystander merely observing Zeke's behavior than actually acting like a police detective, but even as just playing a human being, I found myself more annoyed with Minghella's monologues than anything else. It's possible my criticism here may simply be due to the awful dialogue written into the script, but I think Bousman would have been better off if he'd just cast someone else for Schenk's role.

The Best of the Best: Chris Rock giving an impassioned speech on the struggles of Forrest Gump.

The Worst of the Worst: The incredibly obvious grand reveal combined with the mind-numbingly painful monologue by the killer.

Calhooey Score: 3/10 - Bad

Would I Recommend?

5

Game Over

I was originally going to give this a four out of ten as this film technically functions more than The River Murders, but Spiral effectively fails to impress on any level. Its plot is predictable and condescending while its miscast performers are equipped with shoddy dialogue and poor special effects. If you want a grimy detective film, I'd recommend Seven instead. If all else fails, you're better off just watching the original Saw than this. Spiral isn't worth your time or money, and I'm hopeful that the sequel bait at the end of the film goes unrealized.

Spoiler Comments

• For a film that's supposedly set in New York City, it looks shockingly nothing like the Big Apple.
• Usually Uncle Sam waits until tax season before he starts robbing people...
• It's been a while since I saw the last Saw movies, but I feel like Detective Bozwick was going to die no matter what. If he tore his tongue out of his mouth, I'm guessing he would've bled out within a matter of minutes. At least getting hit by a train would be a quick way to go...
• I see Bozwick went for Option C though: all of the above.
  
• Zeke is singing some serious truths about Jenny and Forrest in that opening monologue.
• I know cops go undercover all the time, but isn't Zeke a homicide detective? Why did he need to go undercover in an armed robbery gang?
  
• I think before Schenk even said anything, I knew he'd at least be somehow involved in the Jigsaw conspiracy.
• Zeke hates to be professionally compared to his father and yet he sits directly under a photo of his dad as police chief.
• I get that some people like their jobs, but you're telling me that no one got promoted/demoted or transitioned to another office/division in twelve years while working homicide for the NYPD?
  
• The biggest revelation of this film is that Samuel L. Jackson's body apparently contains twice the amount of blood than the average human.
• I know it wouldn't have been good for the plot, but I was seriously hoping to see Zeke just blast Schenk in the face when he started monologuing about his plan.
• Also: It would've been really funny to see how Schenk would've reacted if Zeke somehow missed the spiral target that lowered Samuel L. Jackson to the ground.
  
• The part where Samuel L. Jackson's arm was forced to lift up a gun to point at the SWAT unit made me shout "motherfucker" louder than the actor usually does.
  
• After much reflection, if I was presented with the choice of re-watching this or The River Murders, I think I'd pick The River Murders. Neither is good, but at least there's something entertaining in seeing Christian Slater harangue Ray Liotta about how many women he's slept with. This film genuinely pissed me off by the end.
  

References

(1) Spiral. (2021). Spiral film image. IMDB. Retrieved from: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10342730/. 

(2) Houghton, R. (2021, March 25). Zeke looking at the spiral image. Yahoo! Movies. Retrieved from: https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/saw-movie-spiral-gets-earlier-142600663.html.

(3) Paur, J. (2021). Spiral torture device image. GeekTyrant. Retrieved from: https://geektyrant.com/news/watch-the-gruesome-opening-scene-from-spiral-from-the-book-of-saw.

(4) Wallpaper Abyss. (n.d.). Marisol Nichols image. Retrieved from: https://wall.alphacoders.com/tag/marisol-nichols-wallpapers.

(5) Hall, K. (2021, May 14). Chris Rock image. GQ. Retrieved from: https://www.gq.com/story/saw-movies-every-trap-ranked.