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
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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.
