Zeke Banks in Spiral: Who He Is and Who Plays Him

Zeke Banks is the detective at the center of Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021), directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, and Chris Rock plays him. He is an outcast on the police force because of his past. Spiral is a spinoff, so Zeke appears in no other film and sits outside the main saga that runs from Saw (2004) to saw x. If you want to see where the film falls in the series, the saw movies in order guide places it by release date.

The spiral saw cast is built around Zeke. Chris Rock is top billed, Max Minghella plays his rookie partner William Schenk, Samuel L. Jackson plays his father Marcus Banks (a retired police chief) and Marisol Nichols plays Captain Angie Garza. Dan Petronijevic plays the off duty Detective Marv Bozwick, whose death opens the story. The full ensemble across the series is on the saw cast page.

The casting was public well before release. Variety reported in 2019 that Jackson would play Rock's father, with Rock as a detective. Deadline reported that Bousman would direct a script credited to Stolberg and Goldfinger, with a story credit for Rock, and that production would begin in Toronto in July 2019. The film reached US theaters on May 14, 2021, with an R rating in the US, an 18 in the UK and an R18+ in Australia.

Zeke's relationships drive Spiral, because each one is turned into a trap or a clue. His father Marcus Banks, played by Samuel L. Jackson, is a retired police chief, and the final act is built on Schenk's claim that Marcus covered for corrupt officers. The film makes Zeke choose between killing Schenk and saving his father, which is the most direct test of his loyalty.

William Schenk, played by Max Minghella, is the rookie assigned to work beside Zeke, and he turns out to be the killer behind the traps. Peter Dunleavy is Zeke's former partner, and his past crime set the revenge plot in motion. Captain Angie Garza, played by Marisol Nichols, and Detective Fitch, played by Richard Zeppieri, are two more officers who die in the scheme, and Fitch's history with Zeke is why Zeke becomes a suspect.

Zeke also stands in the shadow of the series itself. He recognizes the first trap as Jigsaw style work, but the killer is a copycat with a motive of his own, and the original John Kramer is dead. For other detectives dragged into the games, see eric matthews saw and mark hoffman saw, and for the wider list see saw characters.

In my opinion, the best Zeke scene is the warehouse escape, because it is the one time the film lets him get out of the killer's hands on his own. Chained in the warehouse, he frees himself with nothing but a bobby pin, and the small, practical trick suits a detective with no one left to rely on.

The second is the one bullet choice at the end. Perhaps it works best because the series has always asked whether a person will betray someone to survive, and here the question is turned around, since Zeke is asked to spare a killer in order to save a parent. Compare Eric Matthews in saw 2, who is also a detective with a family member at stake, but whose test was built for him by Amanda. Zeke's version involves an accusation against his own father, and I find that harder to watch.

The weakest stretch, again in my view, is Dunleavy's glass crushing device. It is a clear set piece, but it asks Zeke to fail, and the film gets less out of him afterward. For viewers who want the trap design in more detail, the saw traps page covers the series' devices.