SPIRAL: FROM THE BOOK OF SAW (2021)

Studio:     Lionsgate
Director:    Darren Lynn Bousman
Writer:     Josh Stolberg, Pete Goldfinger
Producer:  Oren Koules, Mark Burg
Stars:     Chris Rock, Max Minghella, Marisol Nichols, Samuel L. Jackson, Daniel Petronijevic, Richard Zeppieri, Patrick McManus

Review Score:

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Summary:

Ostracized by the rest of his department, an outsider detective races to solve the mystery of a Jigsaw copycat killer using torturous traps to target dirty cops.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

At a Fourth of July carnival, pickpocket Benny Rice lures corrupt Detective Marv ‘Boz’ Boswick into a sewer where a ‘Jigsaw Killer’ copycat captures Boz. Boz ends up suspended over a subway track with a torture device clamped around his tongue. Jigsaw’s altered voice explains Boz must sacrifice his tongue to avoid being struck by a subway train as punishment for repeatedly lying in court to frame suspects. Boz tears off his tongue, but he acts too late to avoid the speeding train.

Captain Angie Garza reprimands Detective Zeke Banks over an unsanctioned undercover investigation. Zeke, who is the son of former police chief Marcus Banks, reminds Angie that he works alone because no one trusts him since he turned in his corrupt partner Pete Dunleavy for killing a witness 12 years ago.

Angie assigns rookie detective William Schenk to be Zeke’s new partner. Zeke and William investigate Boz’s death. Zeke realizes they are dealing with a Jigsaw copycat targeting dirty cops after receiving a taunting message and finding a box containing Boz’s tongue and badge.

Zeke takes the lead in the new Jigsaw investigation, which angers fellow detectives. Zeke briefly questions Boz’s widow Kara. Zeke also discusses the case with his father Marcus, with whom he has a complicated relationship.

Having identified the suspect from carnival surveillance footage, Detective Fitch tracks down Benny’s location. Jigsaw captures Fitch. Fitch, whose unwillingness to provide backup years earlier resulted in Zeke being shot, dies in a water torture contraption that tears off his fingers and electrocutes him. Another taunting message and package from Jigsaw leads Zeke and the cops to the scene of Fitch’s death.

Zeke and William shake down a drug dealer for information on Benny. They also question Pete Dunleavy, who now works as a church counselor and still blames Zeke for ending his career.

Zeke receives a Jigsaw delivery containing flesh from what appears to be William’s arm. A vial of model paint included in the package leads Zeke to a butcher shop that used to be a hobby store where Marcus would take Zeke as a boy. Zeke and the cops find a skinned body they presume to be William.

Jigsaw captures Zeke’s father Marcus. A text from Marcus’s phone then lures Angie into the precinct basement where Jigsaw captures her. Angie dies in a contraption that smothers her face with boiling wax. Zeke solves a clue that leads him to Angie, but he arrives too late to rescue her.

Missing surveillance footage indicates Pete Dunleavy manipulated the police station’s security system. Zeke returns to the church to question Pete, but Zeke gets captured by Jigsaw.

Zeke wakes up in an abandoned bottling plant with Pete suspended from the ceiling. Zeke is unable to stop Pete from being killed by repeated machine blasts of broken glass shards.

When the room’s door opens, Zeke confronts William. Identifying himself as the killer, William reveals he is actually the son of Charlie Emerson, who was the witness Pete Dunleavy murdered 12 years ago. William tells Zeke he wants to become partners in cleaning up the police force. Zeke pretends to agree.

To test Zeke’s loyalty, William shows Zeke his father suspended from the ceiling and being drained of blood. Meanwhile, cops arrive outside. William forces Marcus to confess that he oversaw a controversial police policy that cleaned up the streets at the expense of creating corrupt cops. William tells Zeke he can either save his father or shoot William. Zeke gets his father down before engaging William in a fistfight.

When the cops saw their way into the room, they trigger a trap that raises Marcus like a puppet and forces his gun arm to point at the officers. The cops shoot Marcus to death and take Zeke at gunpoint. William uses the commotion to slip away.

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Review:

When the police captain played by Marisol Nichols blew up at Chris Rock’s outsider detective Zeke Banks in “Spiral’s” first ten minutes, I half-expected to see “Last Action Hero’s” Jack Slater milling about the station with a cartoon cat. “F*ck your cover, Zeke! You were off on your own, as usual,” shouts Nichols with near comical anger. Rock rebelliously responds, “There’s nobody on the force I can f*cking trust!” For going rogue yet again, Nichols pairs Rock with a rookie partner, a predictable punishment that nets a predictable reaction from Rock’s loose cannon cop. Nichols explains, “Just because your dad was Police Chief Marcus Banks doesn’t mean you get out of this sh*t!” Rock finishes her forced exposition by adding, “12 years ago, I turn in a dirty cop … and I get to look over my back for the rest of my career!”

Yes, “Spiral” might be “From the Book of Saw,” whatever that is, but it’s not one of your daddy’s typical “Saw” sequels, which were torture-horror thrillers that swung on diabolical twists. Overloaded with movie cop clichés and unnatural dialogue that exists only to deliver information to the audience, “Spiral” appears to instead come “From the Book of Dick Wolf,” as it plays like a pedestrian police procedural infrequently peppered with gobs of gore.

“Spiral” dumps the baggage that comes from being ninth in a series by electing to have nearly nothing to do with any previous movies. No John Kramer. No returning actors. No franchise familiarity required. The only loose connection to other “Saw” films is a copycat killer inspired by Jigsaw’s crimes to create morality-minded torture traps.

This should be welcomed news for anyone put off by convoluted continuity. There’s nothing tricky to keep track of this time. The catch is, because “Spiral” takes a standalone path to being universally accessible for wider audiences, it dumbs things down until it develops too plain of a personality.

The first feeling of “this isn’t how it used to be” comes from the new Jigsaw’s traps. This masked murderer’s methods of teaching captives a lesson retain their trademark cruelty but don’t retain John Kramer’s engineering cleverness. Forget devious Rube Goldberg devices tied to sweat-inducing countdowns. “Spiral’s” comparatively simpler setups put people in pat predicaments that tear off appendages before attacking them with the unsubtle brutality of a speeding subway train, shattered glass shot out of a cannon, or a basic water electrocution. We’re no longer dealing with a criminal mastermind, which in turn means we’re dealing with ho-hum deaths that depict squirm-inducing pain, yet lack the distinctive “Saw” style.

A bigger weapon in “Spiral’s” arsenal is Chris Rock, an unlikely presence who unsurprisingly provides much of the movie’s pop, although the supply still runs low. “Spiral” smartly exploits Rock’s persona to lighten the first act with levity that bears Rock’s personal penmanship. Highlighted by a “Forrest Gump” riff that sounds like a standup snippet, some of Rock’s shtick is mildly amusing. Some of it isn’t. All of it is grim however, making it fit within “Spiral’s” diorama of dourness even though the comedy’s depressing darkness often comes with meanness that isn’t always entertaining.

As whodunits go, “Spiral’s” threadbare mystery is a wet tongue thwipped between two tightened lips. “Spiral’s” straightforward script lacks the wiliness to keep a question mark over the killer’s identity for more than a minute. The culprit is so obvious that the only reason you’ll ever entertain the possibility that you might have guessed wrong is because you think, “No, that’s TOO obvious to be it!”

Meanwhile, the roster of red herrings chokes on unnecessary police personnel. Unless they mattered in earlier drafts of the script, detectives O’Brien, Drury, and Kraus never have enough to do to become viable suspects. Ditto Officer Jeannie Lewis, Coroner Chada, Officer Paul, and everyone else you’ll only know from their end credits listings. “Spiral’s” killer targets corrupt cops, so you’d think maybe these people could become victims instead. Except Neu-Jigsaw only kills a small handful of them, leaving rational minds to wonder, “What use does this plot even have for half of these forgettable faces?”

“Spiral” can be summed up as standard suspense that wouldn’t be given the time of day if it didn’t feature Chris Rock and Sam Jackson, whose onscreen minutes can be counted on one hand, or link back to a popular horror property. A “play it safe and simple” approach leads to a movie no more memorable than an R-rated episode of “Criminal Minds,” complete with laughable lines like a concerned cop complaining, “You’re too close to this thing, Zeke!”

I’d rather have a bad “Saw” film than a mediocre “Spiral” story, which is what this movie is. Even at their worst, “Saw” sequels could still be conversation-worthy based purely on how weirdly wild they could get. “Spiral” just sort of “is,” and that’s a fatal fate for a cop-show-turned-horror-film hoping to kickstart a second series.

Review Score: 50

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