Review – Snitch

While the posters do allude to a big truck on fire, this is not your standard action movie. Production team Participantt Media have attempted socio-political relevancy with an “inspired by true events” story and given one of their screenwriters, Ric Roman Waugh, the director’s chair. However, it’s more so an interesting and impressive outing for star and producer Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

The Rock plays the owner of a trucking company whose son (Rafi Gavron) is arrested for drug trafficking. The charge carries a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years, unless he can inform on an accomplice or wear a wire. But the kid’s lack of drug connections convinces The Rock to wire up and rescue his boy. He colludes with an attorney (Susan Sarandon) and a DEA agent (Barry Pepper), and convinces an ex-con employee (Jon Bernthal) to introduce him to a drug dealer (Michael K. Williams). Things escalate, and soon The Rock’s truck is heading for Mexico with millions in dirty drug cartel money.

Casual moviegoers may line up at box offices to watch another action movie with The Rock, but this one’s pretty sparse with the explosions and heavy on the plotting and family drama. This is more of a family-orientated dramatic thriller, with The Rock portraying a multi-dimensional character. The “true events”, however, are too far-fetched for audiences to get caught believing in the movie as much as The Rock does. Watching a family patriarch face his dark side while negotiating around the DEA, while leading a sting operation against two dangerous drug organisations? Snitch has a TV series sized plot compressed into 112 minutes, and the director struggles to smooth out the convolutions in time for the credits to roll. If Participant Media wanted to address the injustice of wrongful sentencing, Snitch went too far over the top for the public to take it seriously. As a vehicle for The Rock, it’s pretty good, but it would have panned out better as a TV show.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rieI5g9fgRc&w=400]