This weekend the new Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson movie Snitch came out. In this movie, Johnson continues to leave his wrestling moniker behind and seeks to play this role very dramatically but without theatrics. Overall I think he was successful and at times, he seemed to morph into the role, but he continues to be "The Rock" to me on screen, overacting and being very dramatic when a little more subtle would have been better.
In the Snitch, Johnson plays John Matthews, a father who's son has been sentenced to ten years in prison due to the minimal sentence law for drug dealing and his decision not to set up anyone to reduce his sentence. To help save his son, who's behavior he blames himself for, Matthews enters the world of drug transportation to take down the drug cartel. To do so, he involves ex-con Daniel James, played by Jon Bernthal to provide the in into the drug transportation world. Through this Mathews and James encounter the danger of trying to keep their families safe while taking down the drug Kingpin played by Benjamin Bratt. Also starting Susan Sarandon as the women who controls the fate of Matthew's son.
Overall this was an alright action movie but with a focus on the drama and emotional turmoil of the main characters. At times it was a little slow, but the action scenes had lots of stuff getting destroyed and shot up. I liked the interactions between the characters but there wasn't anyone that took of the role of villain who evokes fear in the audience. There were moments of overacting but this wasn't that bad an action movie and there was use of the tight shot of characters and action moments, which I continue to complain about.
Although this movie was good for an action movie, the main struggles I had with this movie, I brought into it because of what I do. I am a counselor who works with a criminal population involved with drug use and I found myself getting exasperated when the parents particularly Johnson's character kept taking all of the blame for the son's decision to get involved with drug trafficking and took on the responsibility of fixing it for him. Even the son stated that he knew he shouldn't have done it but no one puts any blame there. I know it is necessary for this to happen as a quick way to get the action going and to develop motivation for Johnson's character to enter into this fray but I would have liked it better if it was more of a forced choice then a taking on all the responsibility choice. I also didn't like that they referred to the behavior as being a snitch, because it was more a set up for the drug dealers/ cartel then snitching. Again I think this only bugged me because of my daily contact with this type of language.
Again overall it was a good action movie, very predictable but worth seeing for anyone who tends to favor the action genre.
My Rating: 2
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