Spiral

Nothing clicked with me while I was watching Spiral.  Not the characters, not the underlying mystery, and surprisingly not the gory deathtraps that are supposed to be why the movie exists.  This attempt to revitalize the Saw series, the horror franchise that started the whole "Torture Porn" trend of the mid 2000s, is not exciting, thrilling, or gruesome enough to create much of a spark with the audience.

This is despite the addition of some top-tier talent, including Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson, the return of series veteran director Darren Lynn Bousman (he was responsible for Saw II through IV), and a timely theme involving corrupt cops.  Apparently, Rock himself is a fan of the series, and approached the studio with this new idea and take.  You can see potential here, but the movie simply never builds to any real tension.  It simply splashes grisly images up on the screen once in a while, before devoting a majority of its time to a detective story that never really picks up steam.  Even the big reveal at the end seems curiously like a nonevent.  I wanted to be thrilled and on the edge of my seat, but the movie kept me at a distance the entire time.

The film opens with a cop being lured into an underground tunnel by someone who hides their face behind a pig mask, and shares the same passion that the infamous Jigsaw killer from the earlier movies had for elaborate traps with some kind of social or ethical commentary.  This new killer is targeting dirty police officers, and this particular poor sap eventually finds himself hooked up to a strange device with cutting off his tongue being the only way to escape.  Oh, and a subway train is due in about two minutes.  Needless to say, it does not end well for the officer.  Detective Zeke Banks (Rock) demands to be put on the case, as the victim was a close friend of his.  Zeke and his new partner (Max Minghella) try to piece things together, while the new murderer works his way through the supporting cast of officers who all seem to have some kind of grudge against Zeke for one reason or another.

Spiral keeps on establishing characters and relationships, as well as possibly interesting angles for which to take them, and then never follows through with them.  We learn through flashbacks about Zeke's troubles on the police force, and the connection that he had with his father, a veteran officer played by Samuel L. Jackson.  You know that actors like Rock and Jackson have the goods to sell this material and make it memorable, but the movie is simply not engaging.  That's because nobody who walks onto the screen gets to be developed in any realistic or interesting way.  The main characters don't even seem like real cops, but rather walking cliche movie cops.  When we learn of their past actions and why they're being targeted by this new killer, it's not shocking like intended.  This movie simply scratches the surface.

Do these crooked or corrupt cops have families, or homes, or lives?  I doubt this movie cares.  We just see flashbacks of their crimes, and then the killer shows up and tortures them to death in some uninspired trap concerning electrocution, or having your face melted with acid.  Sure, it's gruesome, but it lacks the twisted insidiousness of the better entries.  If the movie wants to say something about dirty cops, and I think it's trying to, it doesn't dig deep enough in order to make it engaging.  Yeah, this is a movie filled with horrible characters, but I've admired those before.  Those are the ones that actually show us all sides of them, and give us some kind of motivation for their actions.  Here, everyone's just kind of a miserable S.O.B. in one sense or another, and they die for it.  

Rather than revitalize the franchise, I think Spiral will only dig it deeper into the obscurity it's occupied since the inspiration of the earlier entries left.  A fresh take is exactly what the films needed, but all Rock and his crew here have done is waste a lot of potential, and waste the opportunity to bring back the fans, and maybe make some new ones.

0 comments