In this movie 'Snitch', we meet Jason (Rafi
Gavron) and he seems like a nice enough kid. About to
head to college, or he might already be there, I can't
remember, but his friends are a little suspect. Say like
his friend who called him on his cell phone about some big
Meth score he's trying to execute. Now I'm no major
criminal or anything, but calling me on my personal cell phone
to setup a drug deal probably isn't the best criminal
move. To Jason's benefit, he didn't even consider this
deal. Good boy. But when the postman drops off a
box from this friend of his and Jason opens it, well, Jason's
life is going to change exponentially from that point
on. Sending drugs through the mail? Also probably
not the best criminal move. Opening boxes from friends
who you know ship meth? You see the issues. Thanks
to mandatory sentencing, Jason will be down for the next ten
to twenty.
Jason's estranged father John (Dwayne Johnson), a hard working
trucking company owner, might be at odds with Jason and his
mom Sylvie (Melina Kankaredes), but he knows his son is a good
kid caught in a really bad situation, and there must be
something he can do. So John goes to talk to the
local prosecutor Joanne Keeghan (Susan Sarandon) who explains
unless Jason can roll over on somebody bigger, he's stuck
doing the time. Problem is Jason is no drug dealer so he
doesn't know anybody he can roll over on. It's not
looking good for poor Jason. Not to mention when his old
man visits him in lockup, from the looks of Jason's face it
looks like soft Jason is somebody's personal whipping boy in
the pen, or worse.
John has an idea. What if he can roll over on
somebody? Use his trucking connections and setup a deal
to maybe save his son. It seems crazy and the prosecutor
isn't actually sanctioning this craziness, but if John can
make it happen, she'll see what she can do.
Fortunately John has a bunch of ex-cons
working for him, say like ex-con Daniel (Jon Bernthal) who
really just wants to keep his life straight and take care of
his wife and young son, but John offers him a sweet deal if he
can get him a meet and greet with some less than desirables,
so against Daniel's better judgment… note that he's unaware of
John's true motivation… he sets it up.
Now John is officially in the drug moving business, albeit as
an informant, and his little foray was a risky one but it
seems like it might've done the trick. Yay! The
boy will be free! But not so fast! It looks like
there might be a bigger, much more dangerous fish on the line
for the authorities to reel in, and while John didn't sign up
for that, this is what he's stuck with if he wants to get his
son out of prison. It's not looking good for John
pulling this off, and while we all love our children, at some
point you have to let them take their medicine, for the
greater good of our own personal health. That's me
talking, not John, who will see this thing through to the
bitter end.
A few years back, this film's director Rick Roman Waugh helmed
a gritty prison drama 'Felon', which I personally thought was
fantastic, and probably contained Val Kilmer's last great
acting performance. As of this day at least, because Val
isn't dead or anything and is still working. Now with
'Snitch', also a gritty, hard hitting drama / thriller, Waugh
is clearly working a bigger budget and a much bigger scope,
but 'Snitch' isn't quite as good as 'Felon' if one is to
compare the two films, though 'Snitch' is definitely worthy.
One of the challenges for the director and his star Dwayne
Johnson is how do you make The Rock seem 'vulnerable'.
Not emotionally, but physically. When you have a star
whose last fifty roles basically consisted of him being a
virtual bulletproof badass, one has to be concerned if Dwayne
Johnson has the acting chops to dial down that persona and
seem like an average concerned dad. One that still
happens to be 6'4", still weighs an easy 250, and still looks
to be cut from stone. One way you pull this off is by
making everybody else around him look meaner. Seriously
though, Michael K. Williams as drug dealer #1 and his crew of
miscreants, Barry Pepper as biker DEA agent #1 and his crew of
police burnouts, Benjamin Bratt as the chief heavy and the
scariest of them all, Susan Sarandon… The Rock seemed
positively Clark Kent like next to this rogues gallery of
villains. Plus Johnson has become a good enough an actor
to sell us on his emotional vulnerability and the fact that
his character doesn't really belong in the circles he's
running in.
But where Waugh did a pretty good job of keeping 'Snitch'
balanced between some sort of gritty reality and the growing
escalation of John's involvement in the drug game, as it nears
its conclusion the film apparently had no choice but to buckle
under the weight of the Action Film Monster. You know
what the monster does… throws our character in an increasing
amount of ridiculous situations usually culminating into some
sort of equally ridiculous action sequence, leading to some
kind of out of this world conclusion. That bastard
cannot be trusted and when he gets going, he cannot be
stopped.
But what are you gonna do? Have a character played by
Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson negotiate a settlement at the
end? I don't think so. Thus at the end of the day,
while 'Snitch' veered wildly out of control as it came to its
conclusion, it was still a hard hitting, gritty, tough ride
while getting there, which made for a better than average
action thriller.
