The Saw franchise has never appealed to me at all. I saw a few of the early entries here and there, but that whole structure of just over the top gore and cruelty has just never been something to really have my interest. I can deal with the odd zombie film, but the gamification of suffering and torture just doesn't really scream entertainment to me. Much like the typical horror film full of violin screeching and jump scares fails to interest me. So, I should probably start this review off with this little note: admittedly, this just isn't for me. However, I stumbled across the film yesterday and saw that Chris Rock was the lead, an actor that I think we all know for Everybody Hates Chris, or some relatively terrible film alongside Adam Sandler. Chris Rock is someone you wouldn't expect to find in a horror film, or even really a thriller film. He has accidentally placed himself, as a comedian, into the typecast role of funny-guy with a whacky voice. While I don't mind Chris Rock as a comedian, I have to say I haven't quite seen him perform in anything that could be considered more serious. At first, I didn't even notice that this was a film in the Saw franchise, I assumed that Spiral was just some title for some crime film with no connection to anything.
My curiosity got the best of me. I wanted to see what Chris Rock was capable of. I saw the film had a low review score online, but I ignored it and decided to see what was in store. I admit I was a little disappointed when I discovered it was related to the Saw franchise, and that this wasn't necessary a sudden comeback from Rock as a more serious actor in more dramatic, serious narratives. Ultimately, the Saw franchise exists to create gore, it isn't so much about the performances, especially in those that are not considered part of the games. Still, I sat through the entire film to see where it went. The experience wasn't great, that's for sure. I can see why this is a film that completely went by me for two years since its release. It's a largely forgettable film, and one that is just absolutely riddled with flaws, to the point in which it is hard to imagine this could be considered part of a rather well-known franchise. As is the case of late: I'll tell you straight up before really starting the review: you are not going to miss out if you do not watch this.
That said, I will still attempt to avoid posting things that could be considered spoilers. There won't be any mentions of how the film ends or who did what and how. Read on knowing you can just become disappointed yourself later on when you potentially watch it yourself! I will be mentioning some basic plot points and characters to give some context to the narrative, though.
Spiral
A positive to the film Spiral is that it decides to reject the typical structure of Saw films and instead gives us the perspective of a detective. The narrative takes place years after the original Saw films, to which the world is now full of copycat killers that find themselves influenced by the ethical questions and artistic killing direction from the original killer. With this different perspective, the film doesn't feel so much focused on the gore and senseless killing, and instead tries to tell a story of personal struggle as a result of yet again the ethical question. A good detective will sell out their friends and colleague if it means maintaining the law, ensuring that no person manages to step above it for any reason, especially if you are witness to their crimes. Our protagonist, played by Chris Rock, is the son of a former cop, and is hated in the precinct due to his arrest of a cop for murdering a witness. This idea is completely fine and sets up the story of a detective with good intentions and actions, but falling victim to a flawed society in which the blame is pinned on them. There isn't a major deep political message here, just typical low entry ethics.
Another positive to Spiral is the cinematography. In parts, the lighting and the compositions are actually very nice. It is hard to find faults in the cinematography throughout, and it is by far the least of offenders here in there film. While it could have been better in the more action packed moments, I feel it came to limitations with just everything else falling flat. Primarily the directing. This film screams indie in the worst way. Full of attempts that don't really work, with very strange editing that attempts to display inner turmoil and psychological struggles. Suddenly we will see our protagonist lashing out, screaming inside and with the camera all shaking, to which he then casually walks around just normal. On paper, this makes great sense! On the screen, this directing just does not work, and is painfully awkward. There are many instances like this, to which the film feels as if there's scenes missing between, that the film we are watching is a loosely edited together film with half of the necessary information removed from view, leading us to a story that's thrown together with little foundation or sense.
Too much of the film struggles with this, and it is worsened by attempts at horror. Typical horror tropes are found where they are supposed to have built up tension in the audience, but again there hasn't really been a build up. It throws attempts at jump scares at you, again without much weight. The tropes even make their way into the detective character, being the assumption of what a troubled detective would be, rather than a realistic interpretation of victimised man trying to do good. A lot of this comes from Chris Rock's character having to juggle emotions every other scene, and being an unstable detective can work, but it needs to be maintained. There needs to be more struggle in what they face and how they manage to overcome it. Instead, he just sort of seems like a generic tough-guy attitude and unlikeable for a fair reason. Now, I don't think Chris Rock's performance is the problem here, but just very bad writing and directing. A total lack of pacing makes it just seem so thrown together, making any performance seem empty.
At some points I felt I was even close to laughing, noticing how comically silly some of the scenes were in how they followed each other. It felt as if sometimes it really did want to make you laugh a little, forcing in attempts at generating laughs to perhaps mix up darker assumption of how the characters and narrative would be. One of the absolute worse parts of the film was the presence of Samuel L. Jackson, who plays our protagonist's even more supposedly hardened father who has quite a confusing relationship with him. The film tried to ease some backstory in with that, and finds ways to put it into the main narrative also. It seemed as if this story really was just thrown together, as many potential plot points as possible under the assumption that it may lead to some questions in the audience along the way, but I never really felt this, even as it did reveal the truth, I just sort of shrugged at it. Neither surprised nor satisfied.
Perhaps the film was burdened with needing some gore still, having to split itself between trying to tell a defective story around the Saw franchise, while still having to make fans happy by being a Saw film. The result being shallow, void of anything fun for either expecting audiences. With not enough experience behind the camera to get it to any decent, believable level. I can admire it for wanting to do something different, and for trying it. There foundations were there, and I quite enjoyed what it aimed for, but just couldn't pull off. I don't think any single change was capable of fixing it. There were just too many flaws. Despite all of that, it would still be nice to see Chris Rock enter the acting sphere a bit more and throw out some more serious, good performances as he ages. Hey, even Adam Sandler managed to do it with Uncut Gems! Maybe watch that instead of Spiral, if for some reason this review didn't already scare you off.
Speaking on the more expected gory parts: I didn't really care much for them. It was clear how the film was going with these scenes and they didn't play a major part in any of it. Sometimes these scenes don't look too bad, other times it's clear practical effects didn't quite work out, or that again the idea seemed better on paper.
If you do happen to be one of the rare Saw fans, you may have seen this already. If you are, and you haven't, I don't think you should go into this expecting Saw. In a way, it almost feels as if it has the cartoonish story of a Saw film that has been adapted to a low budget video game. Was it absolutely terrible? Definitely not. I managed to get through it still. Could it have been better? Absolutely, but with a complete rebuild of the script and perhaps with a more experienced director to put it to screen.
