Arnold Schwarzenegger tangled with the Mexican Drug Cartel
in the shoot’em up actioneer “The Last Stand” back in January. This month the Rock wrestles with the same
dastards in “Snitch.” “Felon” director
Ric Roman Waugh pits the six-foot-four inch former World Wrestling Entertainment
champ against hoodlums armed with accents and submachine guns in “Snitch.” This suspenseful but formulaic narcotics caper
about a father who plunges himself smack in the middle of a drug war on account
of his son telegraphs most of its punches before they land. Our outnumbered protagonist is a fearless father
determined to save his son from death in prison at the hands of the inmates. Unfortunately, this loquacious crime thriller
suffers from a case of pervasive ‘shaky cam’ cinematography. Happily, “Snitch” shifts gears during its
final quarter hour, and Waugh salvages this straightforward melodrama with some
smashing automotive derring-do. Before
he started calling the shots as a director, Waugh coordinated and performed
stunts in the “Lethal Weapon” sequels. Mind
you, the Rock has made better movies than “Snitch,” but this white-knuckle epic
isn’t an outlandish exercise in gratuitous violence. Waugh and “Revolutionary Road” scenarist Justin
Haythe based their humorless undercover crime yarn on an episode of the PBS’
television series “Frontline” that first aired in 1999. In real life, a desperate dad endangered his
own life for the sake of his imprisoned 18 year old son. The real-life father helped law enforcement
nab narcotics dealers, but the local prosecutor refused to honor their side of
the deal. Of course, nothing as
treacherous as this transpires in “Snitch” because the filmmakers bathe the
Federal Government in a complimentary but gritty light.
In “Snitch,” Dwayne Johnson emerges as a thoroughly
charismatic hero. In other words, he doesn’t
mutate into a fantastic, larger-than-life, figure like The Scorpion King. As John Matthews, the Rock owns a successful
transportation company with a fleet of eighteen wheelers. He resides with current wife, Analisa (Nadine
Velazquez of “Flight”) and their young daughter Isabelle (Kyara Campos) in a
spacious house. Meantime,
Matthews’ former-wife Sylvie (Melina Kanakaredes of “CSI: NY”) and their 18-year
old son, Jason (Rafi Gavron of “Mind Games”), have reverted to her maiden name
of Collins. As “Snitch” unfolds, Jason accepts
a special delivery package from a friend who wants to him to stash his drugs
for him. Jason opens the shipping carton,
finds a sack of Ecstasy pills, and then spots a DEA signal transmitter. Moments later, Agent Cooper (a bewhiskered Barry
Pepper of “Saving Private Ryan”) and his team storm Jason’s house. They pursue the terrified lad on foot and in
cars through the streets until they corner him.
As Sylvie and John learn in courthouse, Jason’s so-called friend struck
a deal with Federal authorities to reduce his own prison sentence by implicating
somebody else. Although Jason admits he has
smoked pot in the past, he doesn’t abuse drugs and hasn’t taken anything like
the Ecstasy pills in his friend’s package.
Nevertheless, the amount of MDMA that the DEA caught him with lands him
in prison for a ten-year stretch.
Naturally, John is as stunned as Sylvie is distraught, while U.S.
Attorney Joanne Keeghan (Susan Sarandon of “The Banger Sisters”) refuses to cut
John any deals
John Matthews decides to take matters into his own
hands. He persuades an employee on his
payroll with a criminal record, David James (Jon Bernthal of “The Walking Dead”),
to introduce him to a notorious drug dealer.
This kind of unethical behavior on the part of our hero reflects just
how desperate he is to intervene for his son.
Earlier, John tried to infiltrate the local street gangs and gotten
beaten up for his trouble. Eventually, David
James comes around and takes John to talk with a two-time loser, Malik (Michael
K. Williams of “Gone Baby Gone”), who proves to be a pretty shrewd
gangsta. James and Malik, it seems, knew
each other before James decided to go straight for the sake of his wife and
son. John convinces Malik that he needs
the money to bolster his declining business.
Afterward, John sneaks back to give Keeghan his news, and Agent Cooper
provides him with back-up. Basically,
John plans to let Malik use his tractor-trailers to traffick in narcotics. During the illegal deal, John and James
barely escape, but their initial misfortune turns out to be fortunate. Whereas John had negotiated a deal to hand
Malik to her on a platter, he has an even bigger offer for her. The local leader of the Mexican Cartel (Benjamin
Bratt of “Catwoman”) contacts John in person because he believes there is a
place for him in their criminal family.
The filmmakers turn up the heat on our hero. When John sees Jason in prison, our hero is
shocked by his son’s battered appearance.
Apparently, Jason isn’t holding up too well behind bars, and this
compels John to fight even harder. The
problem is John has gotten himself in too deep. The suspense mounts when cartel
gunmen pay a surprise visit to John’s house. Moreover, they learn about Jason through a uniformed
contact in the prison, and the pressure rises for our hero to perform. The
cartel wants him to drive a fortune in cash, approximately $83-million in
greenbacks, in the trailer of an eighteen wheeler to the border. John suspects they mean to kill him. Agent Cooper warns him to be vigilant.
“Snitch” amounts to an okay actioneer. The sensational driving stunts pump up the
film. Meantime, the supporting cast
spends most of the time on the fringes.
Sarandon’s prosecutor rarely leaves her office, while Barry Pepper stays
out of the Rock’s way. Benjamin Bratt
has little time to develop his characterization of a lethal cartel drug leader
beyond the stereotypes that we have grown accustomed to in these movies. Similarly, Melina Kanakaredes is confined to
the sidelines. Essentially, “Snitch”
implicates the mandatory-sentencing laws that compelled a father to fend for
his son. Ironically, the same laws Waugh’s
movie rants against serve to bring down the villains.
