How A Spiral Joke Creates A Chris Rock Paradox

Thanks to featuring comedy legend Chris Rock in the lead, Spiral is much funnier than the average Saw, but one joke creates a paradox involving its star. That’s not to suggest Spiral is a horror/comedy, or that its story isn’t meant to be taken seriously. If anything, Rock’s jokes in the early stages serve to subvert audience expectations, using their familiarity with Rock as a comedian to lull them into a false sense of security before things get crazy.

Still, Rock playing protagonist Zeke Banks leads to more humor than prior Saw installments, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as viewers who found themselves busting a gut at his Forrest Gump monologue will attest. Unsurprisingly, Rock wrote that himself and had a hand in improving lots of his scenes and dialogue exchanges, which was just fine with director Darren Lynn Bousman, who was a fan of Rock’s.

While most of Rock’s jokes in Spiral work great, there’s one particular pop culture reference that, while amusing in the moment, becomes more intriguing when thought about later. In essence, it creates a paradox surrounding his own career, begging several questions.

Chris Rock’s Spiral Character Watches Chris Rock Movies

Before Zeke and his rookie partner William Schenk bust into a drug den to interrogate a dealer for information concerning Spiral‘s Jigsaw copycat killer, the detective references the 1991 crime drama New Jack City, directed by Mario Van Peebles. It’s a well-known film and remains a cult favorite. It would be a fairly innocuous reference considering what they’re about to do, but that changes when one remembers Chris Rock played a supporting role in New Jack City. Playing junkie turned police informant Benny “Pookie” Robinson was one of Rock’s first big acting roles, and helped establish him as an actor and not just a comic.

The biggest question raised by this scene is this: does Chris Rock the actor/comedian exist in the Saw universe? Clearly, New Jack City does, and Spiral’s Zeke Banks has seen it. When he did, was he surprised at Pookie’s startling resemblance to him, or in this universe, or did New Jack City cast a different actor as Pookie? These questions will most likely never be answered, but by bringing his own work into the story Rock, perhaps purposefully, created quite the paradox within the Saw universe. Perhaps Rock, a noted fan of the franchise, wanted to make fellow audiences wonder. It might also make them ponder if Zeke’s father Marcus Banks (Samuel L. Jackson) has seen Pulp Fiction.

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