Movie Review: Spiral Director: Darren Lynn Bousman

Spiral brings something different to the Saw franchise than the usual death-game twist-a-roo trickery, but the resulting film is a failed copycat attempt at playing copycat itself.

What can I say without spoiling anything in Spiral, other than it is just copycats all the way down? It’s an action-thriller film that feels closer to Se7en than it does to any of the Saw films, but also only an inspired From The Book of Se7en at that.

The plot follows Zeke (Chris Rock), a by-the-book detective whose righteous attitude and track record upholding justice don’t make him best friends with his other officers. After scowling and squinting through every moment of his existence, Zeke yells about a lack of trust within the department to his police captain, Garza (Marisol Nichols).

After reminding the edgy detective of how exhausting his life must be in the shadow of retired, renowned detective-father Marcus Banks (Samuel L. Jackson), she rewards him by partnering the freshly single Zeke with savvy doe-eyed rookie cop Schenk (Max Minghella), the only character who doesn’t scream his lines at everyone, everywhere, whether they’re in an elevator or a basement or talking about police brutality or pilates.

These two mismatched personalities collide with predictable humour and humanity as they go to check on a ‘routine homeless man hit by a train’ incident which is the first of many not-so-subtle inclusions throughout the script that the world pretty packed to the brim with explosive social issues and lack of humanity toward each other.

The film doesn’t offer much of an answer to this even as it goes well into its 95th minute, but it does frame all of these issues of injustice and abuse of power quite well behind a very talented foley artist and 12 raw chickens torn apart off-camera, and our leads discover that the victim was entirely shredded, all but for a few pieces of crucial evidence that can identify him.

What feels strange about the film overall is that for over half the time, the dialogue, performances, and framing of a scene seems satirical in being a buddy-cop action cliche, as though we’re watching actors pretending to be actors, pretending to be cops.

There are places where platitudes and generic wisdom are given out without fitting the situation, cops in the precinct immediately racing to yell out ‘Jigsaw Copycat’ the second anything spiral-related pops up on the very obvious breadcrumb trail of evidence, and yet there are still people asking ‘What do you think John Kramer/Jigsaw/Our Source Material has to do with any of this?’ possibly because that’s never really answered either.

We can’t give away or talk about the ‘twist’ of the film, but know that being a Saw film even by association, there is one, and talking about what didn’t happen serves a lot more purpose in reviewing this is an addition to the horror genre, and in marketing a film which can count its appealing features on a single hand.

Imagine if this film was a sleeper tie-in sequel to Se7en (and then imagine the hype for 2SE7EN2 and the inevitable S373N) where a copycat would have all the deranged, megalomaniac self-righteousness of John Doe/Kramer without having to be an engineering genius or fingerprintless Faustian nightmare to record five minutes of high-pitched gore and send elaborate blood dolls to a police detective.

The build-up to this imagined shock continued until the midway point, where I was wondering if this was going to be the mind-blowing reveal that had been hidden behind the wailing, gluttonous trailers we’d received. Twist, it’s actually the 70s, and double-twist, this is Morgan Freeman’s character, but younger, experiencing first-hand what he would only revisit later with a savvy, doe-eyed Brad Pitt.

Sadly, this was just one potential reality that never eventuated, and the film ties all of its messaging and reasoning into the Saw franchise, only to paint a bloody canvas on the corrupt law enforcement and justice system within The United States, accompanied by a soundtrack featuring Saw Pig-Monster Squeal Vol 4 and Sharp, Abrasive Saw SFX Pack 5.

Spiral isn’t a terrible film; it has moments of genuine comedy, moments of accidental comedy, a gratuitous amount of lingering gore, and invincible pig-nappers with creepy doll sidekicks.

But this is about all it has and that, unfortunately, doesn’t make it a stand-out refresh from the eight films before it. It veers into generic serial-killer territory at the loss of its famous death games and swapping out claustrophobic torture scenes for high-powered shock gore; sadly it handles neither of those transitions very gracefully, making its spiral one that feels messy and convoluted instead of macabre and compelling.

Director: Darren Lynn Bousman
Starring: Chris Rock, Samuel L. Jackson, Marisol Nichols, Max Minghella

Oxford Lamoureaux