Dwayne Johnson is the star of Snitch, a new action/drama about a small business owner named John Matthews, who has to go to the extreme to get his son out of a very tight noose.
When it comes to Johnson I have to continually wonder if I’ll ever see him in a film where I’m not distracted by his past as a wrestler.
The basic premise involves Matthew’s son, who’s made an understandable mistake regarding drugs that lands him, not only in jail, but facing a minimum mandatory sentence that destroy his entire life. John is determined to do all he can to keep this from happening but everything seems against them. Finally, out of frustration, he turns to the District Attorney (played by Susan Sarandon). In the first of several “don’t think about it much” plot points, they work out a deal where John will go undercover to snag a major drug bust so that the D.A. looks good enough to let his son off the hook legally.
The bulk of the film involves the details of that arrangement and less action sequences than you might think. It’s a more involved plot than I expected and it kept me entertained through most of it—again with the caveat that you not ask too many pesky questions.
This is, without question, Johnson’s best role to date. I actually managed to forget about “The Rock” about the midway point and that’s a major positive. There’s also the undercover agent played by Barry Pepper that’s a great help (just ignore his bizarre mustache). You’ll also get Benjamin Bratt as the major bad guy (if only briefly). The most memorable role is that of local drug dealer Malik played by Michael Kenneth Williams.
In the end it the over-the-top plot points really bring the whole effort down a peg or two but it’s still not a wasted time.
