The latest Dwayne Johnson movie SNITCH takes ‘The Rock’ into a whole new area of drama with very pleasing results. The script is the result of one of the industry’s top stuntmen moving into the writing and directing end of the game. Ric Roman Waugh has been around for some time with celebrated work in Days of Thunder, Total Recall and Gone in 60 Seconds, but it’s his recent work that is opening up new opportunities with a creative storyline and a dramatic tension in the on-screen results.
While ‘The Rock’ has a number of ”Dad’ roles to his credit like Tooth Fairy, The Game Plan and Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. On this outing, we have some acting credibility and a script that gives us a sense of the real drama between a father disconnected from his son through a divorce and the story that while unravelling around them, is the catalyst to bring them together.
In our story, a young man dabbling on the edge of the temptation of drugs ends up being the patsy for a friend who is dealing. When an American law is utilised with mandatory sentencing the dealer turns over young Jason Collins to the police to secure his own freedom. The young English actor Rafi Gavron plays the beaten young idealist struggling with a missing father figure extremely well.
It’s from here that Dad, John Matthews (The Rock) is brought into the scene by his ex-wife Sylvie played by NCIS NY actress, Melina Kanakaredes. The broken parents are desperate to get their son out of the system and trying to come to grips with how results seem more important than justice. With no hope of convincing the District Attorney, Joanne Keeghan (played by Susan Sarandon) of a reprieve, Johnson goes undercover with the DEA to catch a thief as bargaining power to secure his son’s release. Barry Pepper is a surprise revelation as a hippy-like DEA agent who monitors Matthew’s movements. It’s a unique cast of characters that helps create some suspense as you try to read between the lines of the story.
It’s a great dramatic thriller as a Dad with love to gain and a life to sacrifice puts his company and the reputation of both families on the line for his son. Benjamin Pratt brings his villainy up to speed as Drug Lord Juan Carlos ‘El Topo’ Pintera while Michael Kenneth Williams rules the local roost as drug dealer Malik. There will always be those who are detractors of any movie featuring the biceps of Dwayne Johnson on the movie poster but this is a great movie.
Rating: M: Drug use & violence.
