Johnson stars as a father who goes undercover to take down the drug
cartel that framed his son for a drug set-up.
Dwayne Johnson explodes into action as a man determined to bring a Mexican cartel to its knees. Johnson stars as a successful businessman who learns his son faces 10 tough years in a Federal hole for drug possession. Convinced it was a set-up, he volunteers to become an undercover informant and infiltrate a ruthless cartel. Now, with his back against the wall and his life totally on the line, he must expose the true criminals before they discover his identity.
Price: $29.95
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Dwayne Johnsonian's new film Snitch is not nearly the generic action-thriller that I was expecting based on the generic trailers that seem so desperate to make you believe it is so. Snitch is surprising in a lot of ways, for one thing it is actually more thoughtful and has ideas and a point of view on current affairs regarding our legal system, it is more powerful than you might suspect and it is an exciting change of pace for a wrestler who wants to be an actor.
Not to make it sound so trivial, this is to be fair Johnson's best work, as of yet. Though he isn't a fully capable dramatic actor, as of now, he is a lot better than you probably have a right to expected and here he gets to flex a different set of muscle than he usually does.
Johnson plays John Matthews, a trucking company owner, who's estranged son, Jason (Rai Gavron) finds himself in trouble with the law, and I mean serious kind of trouble, like ten years behind bars kinda trouble. It seems that Jason foolishly agreed to intercept a package of Ecstasy for his best pal, under the mandatory sentencing laws he faces a decade behind bars just for doing so. Jason can't really turn snitch, he doesn't have the stomach for it and besides, he doesn't actually know any drug dealers.
So John strikes a deal with a hard ass federal prosecutor (Susan Sarandon), that if he helps to sneer a bigger fish drug dealer that his son's sentence will be greatly reduced. But as stated in the great film noir Detour, fate is just waiting to stick it's foot out and trip you. So, John finds himself in one bad situation to one worst situation eventually leading him into the trusted inner circle of a cartel boss called "El Topo" (Benjamin Bratt) .
Johnson may not be ascending to the first rank of acting talents, but he does manage an admirable job. Take Arnold Schwarzenegger for example, he has always had difficulty with playing ordinary-type guys, I always thought that was because he is so far from being an ordinary man that it lacks credibility, what it really was is that he lacked the skill to make it credible. Johnson isn't much more of an ordinary guy-type, but he manages to make us believe him because he succeeds in playing the role well.
Unexpectedly Johnson is never better than when he's sharing screen time with talented old pros like Oscar winner Susan Sarandan and the underappreciated character actor Barry Pepper. I suspect these fine thespians are able to bring out the best in the big lug, who actually doesn't seem like a big lug at all in this one.
The real acting high spot however is courtesy of the relatively unknown Jon Bernthal, who plays John's employee who he has help him with his introduction into the drug underworld. Bernthal is a strong and engaging actor, he is able to fully bring his character to empathetic life and I'm going to look forward to seeing him in future roles.
Directed by former movie stuntman Ric Roman Waugh who relies, perhaps a little too much on the largely unappealing shaky cam for his action scenes. However, he seems to know his way around a tight dramatic script, which he co-authored. Waugh has directed before, particularly a movie titled Felon starring Val Kilmer and Stephen Dorff, which I have not seen, but have heard good things regarding it and given his work here, I think he will be a director to keep an eye on.
We are told up front that Snitch was inspired by a true story, just how much of it resembles reality is very little, I suspect. The story is preposterous, but it works as a very entertaining thriller with a well-written script from director Waugh and co-writer Justin Haythe (Revaluation Road).
For an actioner, the violence is surprisingly and pleasantly kept to a minimum in most instances helping to give the story a tad more room to breathe and thus credibility. Of course, Snitch has the obligatory car chase and it all comes down to a high speed pursuit and shoot out. However, this movie is more interested in character and ideas than habitual violence, in action movie terms it is more Copland than Demolition Man.
Recently, a lot of action stars have appeared in tiresome and effete movies, but Johnson has found his way into one of the better ones. Efficiently made, well told with strong performances. As far as action flicks go, this is some thing special and of late, that's become all too rare.
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