John Matthews the owner of a trucking company finishes work one day and comes home to find his teenage son Jason has been arrested for supplying drugs and is facing between 10 and 50 years imprisonment . Jason can get a reduced sentence if he supplies names of other drug dealers but Jason has no knowledge of other dealers . John Matthews then decides to infiltrate local drug gangs so he can inform on them to the DEA and get his son out of prison
Considering it stars Dwayne " the Rock " Johnson you could be forgiven for thinking you're watching something that firmly belongs on the straight to DVD shelf but SNITCH is very much a action thriller with very human drama . Indeed very early in the film when John Matthews stops to help one of his workers , Daniel James load bags of cement you can't help thinking that you're going to be watching a very pious and whiter than white man portrayed as a poor unfortunate victim . The film perhaps mindful that the entire situation has been created by some teenager buying a massive bag of MDMA second guess that the audience might not be too sympathetic to his plight so becomes slightly guilty of tugging the heart strings by gnashing of teeth in angst ridden domestic scenes and manipulative music . It could have been even more over done but thankfully it doesn't go overboard , but you'll still notice a slightly manipulative agenda at play
That said Johnson is a revelation here and I was struck as to how effective he was in the role of John Matthews . Okay I doubt if he'll be picking up an Oscar nomination next year but he manages to create an empathy with the audience and where SNITCH works best is when it gets to the heart of the plot where Matthews infiltrates the street gangs and finds himself being elevated in to the higher echelons of a Mexican drug cartel and it's at this point you know things are going to work out very badly for him and his agenda is going to be found out as he finds himself stuck between a rock ( Sorry guys ) and a hard place
If there's a problem it's not so much with the film itself but with the reality of drug laws in America . If drugs were legalized and provided by the state this would have solved many of the problems illustrated here . Throughout the film you'll be shouting at the screen that it's the fault of unenforceable legislation that created many of the scenes seen here and amazingly the film ends with a caption pointing out that first time drug dealers often get a sentence longer than many rapists , robbers and child molesters . You don't however get the impression the film is making any really intelligent point about the criminalization of drugs and the caption seems mainly added as an afterthought . That said SNITCH is an impressive enough thriller that has more going for it than many other recent thrillers . This is down to its humanity
Considering it stars Dwayne " the Rock " Johnson you could be forgiven for thinking you're watching something that firmly belongs on the straight to DVD shelf but SNITCH is very much a action thriller with very human drama . Indeed very early in the film when John Matthews stops to help one of his workers , Daniel James load bags of cement you can't help thinking that you're going to be watching a very pious and whiter than white man portrayed as a poor unfortunate victim . The film perhaps mindful that the entire situation has been created by some teenager buying a massive bag of MDMA second guess that the audience might not be too sympathetic to his plight so becomes slightly guilty of tugging the heart strings by gnashing of teeth in angst ridden domestic scenes and manipulative music . It could have been even more over done but thankfully it doesn't go overboard , but you'll still notice a slightly manipulative agenda at play
That said Johnson is a revelation here and I was struck as to how effective he was in the role of John Matthews . Okay I doubt if he'll be picking up an Oscar nomination next year but he manages to create an empathy with the audience and where SNITCH works best is when it gets to the heart of the plot where Matthews infiltrates the street gangs and finds himself being elevated in to the higher echelons of a Mexican drug cartel and it's at this point you know things are going to work out very badly for him and his agenda is going to be found out as he finds himself stuck between a rock ( Sorry guys ) and a hard place
If there's a problem it's not so much with the film itself but with the reality of drug laws in America . If drugs were legalized and provided by the state this would have solved many of the problems illustrated here . Throughout the film you'll be shouting at the screen that it's the fault of unenforceable legislation that created many of the scenes seen here and amazingly the film ends with a caption pointing out that first time drug dealers often get a sentence longer than many rapists , robbers and child molesters . You don't however get the impression the film is making any really intelligent point about the criminalization of drugs and the caption seems mainly added as an afterthought . That said SNITCH is an impressive enough thriller that has more going for it than many other recent thrillers . This is down to its humanity