Sunday, 23 June 2013

Snitch (2013, Dir. Ric Roman Waugh, USA/UAE) (Cert: 12a/PG-13) ***


 

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Jon Bernthal, Susan Sarandon

 

Jason Collins (Rafi Gavron) reluctantly agrees to accept a package from a friend (James Allen McCune) that contains drugs. Upon delivery, Jason is arrested and is facing a minimum mandatory sentence of ten years, unless he reveals the identity of other associates in the drugs trade, which could lower his sentence. However, Jason doesn’t know of any other dealers or distributors so his father, John Matthews (Johnson) decides to build connections in the underworld in order to help secure his son’s release.

 

A dramatic thriller about the drugs trade, Snitch does a few things righ, but is largely unremarkable. There are some problems in the film, evidenced by the rather stereotypical portrayal of criminals (virtually all African-American or Latino gangbangers) that hardly pulls the film in a positive direction, not to mention having Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson play a vulnerable protagonist is a bit of a stretch. However, Johnson does pull off a fairly good performance, which may surprise many people. The film’s best moments are when we get to deal with the family relationship that Johnson’s lead, John Matthews has, and how such an original dynamic plays on his character, though the action sequences are still capable of exciting. There are some rather sizable flaws (the premise even seems a little hard to swallow from a legal standpoint), but Snitch is enjoyable all the same.

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