Dwayne Johnson and Barry Pepper (Steve Dietl/Summit Entertainment)A veteran Drug Enforcement Administration agent (Barry Pepper) coaches worried dad John Matthews (Dwayne Johnson) on how to handle himself in an undercover operation: “Just be yourself.” Pepper may as well be directing Johnson on character motivation. It doesn’t quite work. Director Ric Roman Waugh, in his second feature, can’t get the performance he needs out of The Rock. Snitch is something of a dramatic departure for Johnson, and it has its heart in the right place. But good intentions don’t make a good movie. Snitch doesn’t work as the action movie it’s set up to be or the social drama it tries to be.
Matthews is a divorced father of two who owns a trucking business, and if there’s a kind of business you can believe Johnson is in charge of, it’s trucking. He goes undercover for the DEA to cut a deal for his son Jason (Rafi Gavron), sent to jail for receiving a package he shouldn’t have. Jason is a first-time offender, but as a bit of expository dialogue from a district attorney played by Susan Sarandon helpfully explains, mandatory minimum sentencing means that Jason faces 20 to 30 years in prison. If he rats out other dealers he can shave a decade or two off his time, but Jason refuses. Matthews cuts his own deal. If he can get a prime dealer arrested, his son does less time.
We meet Matthews as he’s supervising his workers, and he seems like a fair boss, but there are hints of working class injustice here. Contrast his suburban Missouri McMansion with the cramped inner-city apartment where his dealer-connected employee Daniel James (Jon Bernthal) lives. The consequences of minimum mandatory sentencing and the struggles of the working class point to what could have been a compelling neo-realist drama of America at war with itself. But that’s not why they cast The Rock.
Barry Pepper and Susan Sarandon (Steve Dietl/Summit Entertainment)Johnson has a good action hero presence, but it works against him in this role. His coiled body language threatens to kick ass at any minute, so when he gets roughed up by a couple of small time drug dealers, you don’t believe Johnson is as helpless as he looks. A more expressive actor could have pulled this off, but Johnson doesn’t have the a face expressive enough to convince us of his struggle. Matthews visits his son in prison in a couple of scenes, and these should be the center of their difficult father-son relationship, and to some extent they work, but Johnson’s stone face conveys not so much paternal strength as limited range.
The character actors keep this kind of watchable. Pepper’s distinct looks alone act rings around almost anybody else here, and Benjamin Bratt lends a quiet menace to his role as drug kingpin nicknamed “El Topo,” which makes you wonder what Jodorowsky would have made of this script.
The heart of Snitch could have made a decent Die Hard movie, much better than the sequel we ended up with: an ordinary family man takes the law into his own hands and … you know the drill. The pieces for a competent action drama are there, but they never come together.
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Directed by Ric Roman Waugh
Written by Justin Haythe and Ric Roman Waugh
With Dwayne Johnson, Susan Sarandon, Barry Pepper, and Jon Bernthal
Rated PG-13 for drug content and sequences of violence
Running time 112 minutes
