‘Saw’ managed to exceed 100 million dollars in worldwide collection when its budget was just over one million. Logical that for a long time a sequel was released every year. The saga seemed to die in 2010, but seven years later there was a first attempt to relaunch it that did not have continuity. We will see what happens in the case of ‘Spiral: Saw’, a failed film promoted by Chris Rock that arrives this Friday, May 21, in Spanish cinemas.
The bet of the film
Set several years after the first installment in a world perfectly aware of the crimes of Jigsaw and all his imitators, ‘Spiral: Saw’ is a film that differs from its predecessors by leaving aside a narrative mechanics similar to that of a Escape Room to focus on the investigation that arises around a new crime wave.
It is true that in the first ‘Saw’ there was also an important police subplot in the plot, but the true axis of the saga had never been that. In this way, ‘Spiral: Saw’ finds its reason for being, but also what prevents the film from ever taking off, since it relies on Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger, previously signatories of the script for the discreet ‘Saw VIII ‘, to write it seems like the biggest mistake of the film.
And it is that ‘Saw VIII’ already gave a worrying sense of routine that is increased here when developing the investigation of the character played by Rock. Using more or less commonplace would not be possible if they knew how to give it the necessary fluidity so that the viewer is not looking forward to another of Jigsaw’s characteristic twisted traps.
It is then when Darren Lynn Bousman, a veteran of the franchise – his are both the second, the third and fourth installments -, is more comfortable returning to this world. It is not only in those scenes that ‘Spiral: Saw’ is most recognizable within the franchise, it is also when the film is more free and playful to offer the viewer what he knows he has come to see. I also include those sadistic messages left by the murderer.
He ends up staying in no man’s land
It is not that later his staging work is much worse -although sometimes he may delight in pointing out possible suspects-, but he does have to deal with a material so little stimulating that in the end everything depends more on being funny. the jokes of the character played by Rock than anything else. And is that everything related to police corruption ends up being very flat, little more than an excuse to justify certain script solutions than something you really want to delve into.
It is a pity that it is so, because on paper it is what gave that investigation a different flavor, with our protagonist having to deal with the great villain but also with those who should be his allies. It even opened the possibility of connecting it with the Black Lives Matter movement in some way, but at the moment of truth it is something that is there because it is necessary for the script to advance and little else.
In this way, ‘Spiral: Saw’ ends up condemned to routine, wanting to update the franchise but not really daring to do so, which is totally clear in its final section.
Along the way we have a more or less competent cast that helps prevent things from derailing prematurely. It is true that I missed a greater presence of Samuel L. Jackson, but hey, it does show that Rock trusts a film that starts from his idea, thus helping one never completely get out of the story, and that “merits” for it has a few.
In short
‘Spiral: Saw’ ends up being a bit in a no man’s land, both within the franchise itself as a new installment and in the possibility of seeing it as a renewal of it. However, it is not the worst of the saga, but it also falls far short of the most estimable deliveries. A missed opportunity to be able to do something really exhilarating, wow.
