This little-known Chris Rock film exposes America's corruption!
Rock starred in "Spiral," which was released in 2021.
“Art is the best thing of all for veiling the terrors of the pit.”
Charles Baudelaire
On the surface, off-duty police detective Marv Bozwick embodies the greatness of America. He was celebrating America’s national birthday on the 4th of July in 2021 and selflessly stepped in to stop a thief. In a traditional cops-and-robbers story, Bozwick would have been the hero who saved the day.
Before long, though, Bozwick was the one who needed saving. Captured by a mysterious figure in a pig mask, Bozwick soon found himself standing on a rickety wooden stool in an abandoned part of the Los Angeles subways. With both hands tied behind his back with barbed wire and — gruesomely — his tongue impaled with a screw attached to a metal contraption hanging from the ceiling, Bozwick soon learned he needed to tear out his tongue or die when the next train collided with his bleeding, dangling body.
Speaking only for myself, I can’t think of a better way to start a movie!
In 2021, comedian and actor Chris Rock starred in a horror flick called “Spiral: From the Book of Saw.” Though technically the ninth installment in the venerable “Saw” franchise, “Spiral” tells a self-contained story. In the “Spiral” universe, the Jigsaw Killer inspired multiple copycats with his sadistic, torturous games intended to punish the wicked.
What if one of those copycats decided that the police are corrupt and fascistic, and therefore targets them with Jigsaw’s methods?
That is the premise of “Spiral,” which was directed by Darren Lynn Bousman (helmer of three prior installments) and starred Samuel L. Jackson, Marx Minghella, Marisol Nichols and Dan Petronijevic as the hapless Bozwick. When I discussed the film with co-screenwriters Pete Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg (also scribes for “Saw VII,” “Jigsaw” and “Saw X” and editor Kevin Greutert (who directed “Saw VI,” “Saw VII” and “Saw X”), they offered remarkable insights into “Spiral” is relevant in the age of President Donald Trump.
For the first part of our conversation, please click here. To watch the whole “Spiral” interview by video, please click here and skip ahead to the 38:00 mark.
I’m opening this article with my response to Goldfinger’s observation that police officers seemingly subscribe to a culture that values loyalty over their moral obligations to the general public. Once this segment of the interview is over, I’ll close with my conclusion about the importance of finding “middle ground” solutions to our more complicated society’s problems, such as police brutality.
Believe it or not, this can be found in the same story that forces poor Bozwick to decide between a tongueless life and a splatter-filled death. (The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity.)
ROZSA: My brother-in-law is a police officer. Two people I grew up with in high school who I’m very close to became police officers. They’re all good men. I agree with you, Pete, that the biggest problem is that the good men and the bad men seem to all be lumped in together. My argument is that a lot of that has to do with the police unions. And I’m very pro-union. I’m not bashing labor unions in terms of them getting high wages and benefits and autonomy for their workers. But I don’t think a union should be allowed to get its workers away with murder. Like, I do think that should be a line: I’m pro-union, but I don’t think your union should be able to cover it up if you commit a murder.
GREUTERT: “Spiral” is a pretty cynical movie because the only cop in the entire department who’s not filthy with corruption is Chris Rock’s character. Right? And he still stabs a guy in the leg and pours tequila on the wound to get him to ‘fess up. Yeah… So yeah…
GOLDFINGER: He’s one of the good ones!
STOLBERG: But he doesn’t win in the end! He too doesn’t win in the end! He’s taken down. And perhaps it’s because of his own corruption.
GREUTERT: Well, you know, one thing that I would say, as far as people who become cops, I have one childhood friend who became a cop. I was out of touch with him for many decades, but he’s a standup guy. I went to a wedding, this last weekend, of somebody who’s a cop. I think I had certain expectations of what the ceremony would be like, and the people there, and I was completely wrong. And it was wonderful and fantastic and flawless!
To that, I would say for — as horrible as it is to live through this current era in American history, it has opened my eyes to things that I was blind to prior to Trump. And one of the most interesting ones is just the way I was emotionally caught up in what was happening to, for example, the FBI, at the beginning of Trump’s second term. They were basically the good people that were thrown out and punished, and their lives must be totally miserable. And I think most of them probably have the feeling that the more moral and good that you have been through your life, the more likely it is that the Republicans have now stomped on your face and kicked you out, right?
I never saw that coming in my life, that I would want to cry on behalf of the FBI, but here we are. That’s how f***ed up our time is.
ROZSA: Yeah. I think what I would say, and I’m curious if you will agree, and this applies, I’m going to actually bring all of these themes full circle. You can oppose bad people in the medical establishment without being anti-medicine. You can oppose bad police officers without being anti-cop. You can oppose the corruption in the FBI, which is rampant, without saying, ‘Okay, we should get rid of it altogether.’
It is possible to take those middle ground approaches.
The tragedy exposed in the plot, presentation and performances in “Spiral” is that — while those “middle ground approaches” exist — the intoxicating and morally corrupting influence of power inclines so many Americans away from them. Thus “Spiral” exists both as a welcome escape from Baudelaire’s “terrors of the pit” and an expose of where we are (and are headed) as we continue to tumble down it.
“Consoling myself that I am old, I take shuddering comfort in the thought: After me, the deluge!”
Ferdinand von Saar
Until the deluge overwhelms us; until we are swallowed up by the terrors of the pit; let us derive joy from the pure fun of watching Bozwick — seeming solid citizen celebrating America’s most sacred nationalist holiday — figure out a solution to his torturous puzzle.
Back Seat Socialism
Back Seat Socialism is a column by Matthew Rozsa, who has been a professional journalist for more than 13 years. Currently, he is writing a book for Beacon Press, “Neurosocialism,” which argues that autistic people like the author struggle under capitalism, and explains how neurosocialism - the distinct anticapitalist perspective one develops by living as a neurodiverse individual - can be an important organizing principle for the left.