Snitch
Snitch – When Jason Collins is arrested for possessing narcotics, his friend implicates him as a dealer in order to reduce his own sentence and Jason now faces the mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in jail. When Jason admits that he doesn’t know any other dealers and refuses to wrongly implicate any of his friends, he is unable to do anything to reduce the sentence. Jason’s estranged father, John Matthews, is desperate to help his son and offers to arrange a set-up in order for the police to arrest a dealer. With the stakes so high, John soon finds himself out of his depth, having to rely on his wits to survive in the dangerous world he now finds himself in.
Snitch (2013) – Director: Ric Roman Waugh
Rating: 12A
Running Length: 112 mins
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Jon Bernthal, Susan Sarandon
Genre: Drama, Thriller
REVIEW – ‘SNITCH’
Taking a break from his all-out action hero roles, Dwayne Johnson shows his acting talent as an ordinary man pushed to extraordinary measures when his son’s freedom (and life – at the hands of his fellow prisoners) is put in jeopardy. It is a credit to Johnson that he can switch to this alternative, grittier role, providing a much needed push for him to take a step closer to more serious acting and a step away from his ‘The Rock’ persona. While Johnson is top-notch as the lead character, all the cast turn out star performances and, with fully well-rounded characters, there is plenty for them all to sink their teeth into.
Waugh clearly has a bug-bear with the US laws on narcotics but the movie rarely slips into self-indulgent rhetoric like it so easily could. Instead he concentrates on the story at hand and creates an exciting thriller that manages to be both believable and action-packed. The score provides a lot of tension when Johnson’s character is in dangerous situations and, while not being a typical action movie, the pacing keeps the adrenaline pumping throughout. ‘Snitch’ is a serious drama with a serious message to give and is therefore a movie which is well and truly adult in nature. While the trailers seemed to promise a more standard Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson action flick, this is not a movie which has kids in mind. There is a lot of realistic danger involving hardened criminals and it is therefore likely to be too gritty and threatening for younger viewers.
CONTENT – IS ‘SNITCH’ SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN?
While much of the content involving actual violence is appropriate for a ‘12A’ certificate, the tension which is built up throughout the movie may cause distress to a lot of kids who are old enough to know what is going on. The criminals are extremely dangerous and unpredictable and it is never clear which characters are going to survive. There are several threats to family members (including young children) and during one scene, John returns home to find several drug dealers there with his wife. She is afraid but John sends her away safely in order to pick their daughter up from school.
When approaching the drug dealers, there is a real sense of intimidation and threat. The first dealer John meets is the extremely dangerous Malik (played by Michael K Williams, best known for playing ‘Omar’ in the hit TV show, ‘The Wire’). When walking into Malik’s house, John is clearly intimidated by the large men who surround him and he is aware that everything he says or does could cause him to be killed. When discussing Malik, a narcotics agent tells another character that when he was betrayed, Malik tracked those responsible down and ‘bled them out – personally’. During the first job, John and another man are taken to a dark room while the drugs are checked and they are surrounded by men with guns. Soon afterwards a rival gang appears and after a gunfight, several men are killed. The bodies are then seen being buried in a mass grave.
When John sees Jason at the prison, he repeatedly has injuries which have been caused by fellow prisoners. At one point, John is unable to visit as Jason has been taken to the infirmary, requiring ’36 stitches’. This causes Jason’s mother, Sylvie, to become tearful and hysterical, blaming herself for not raising her son properly. When John next sees Jason, he is limping and has been badly beaten.
CAN I SEE A CLIP?
VERDICT – IS ‘SNITCH’ FOR KIDS?
‘Snitch’ is a very well acted and excellently paced movie which was unfairly portrayed as a throw-away action film in the trailers. It is a pleasure to see Dwayne Johnson thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to show his acting clout and it will be interesting to see which roles he will take on in the future. Due to the realistic themes of criminal activity and drug dealers, we would not recommend this movie for kids under the age of 12.
- Violence: 3/5 (we feel that the actual violence on display is appropriate for a 12A rated movie. There are several moments where characters are held at gunpoint with the real possibility of them being killed. One character holds another man round his neck tightly until they go limp although it is unclear whether the man is dead or just unconscious)
- Emotional Distress: 2/5 (Jason, John and Sylvie are often seen to be distressed by the situations they are in)
- Fear Factor: 5/5 (realistic depictions of criminal activity, the atmosphere is often very menacing and threatening)
- Sexual Content: 0/5
- Bad Language: 5/5 (frequent moderate cursing, one strong word is used. Also a racial term is used several times but said by the dealers as a non-discriminatory word)
- Dialogue: 3/5 (the families of the characters are often threatened, constant drug references, some characters are also seen to drink and smoke. One character is forced to snort a white powdered drug which is shown on camera)
- Other notes: Deals with themes of drug trafficking, narcotics laws, doing the right thing (not the easy thing), working undercover, dangerous crime and family relationships.
Words by Mike Record
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