Snitch

The love of family is a powerful emotion that can make a person do crazy things. It’s what makes a father risk his love to save his son despite the consequences involved. For business owner John Matthews (Dwayne Johnson) that means helping the police catch members of the drug cartel in order to reduce his son’s 10 year prison sentence.

When John’s son from a previous marriage gets wrongfully arrested for drug possession with intent to sell, he’s looking at a minimum sentence of 10 years unless he can become a snitch and rat out other drug dealers to reduce his time. When he comes up empty, it’s John who volunteers to go undercover and make arrests for the state. What starts out as getting a small time drug dealer off the streets soon takes a dangerous turn when John has the chance to get the entire drug cartel.

Snitch is a slow burn film with an average payoff that ultimately falls together too neatly. The film portrays John as a family man who would risk anything for the ones he loves. That includes his current wife and daughter, although they apparently take a backseat when John’s son Jason (Rafi Gavron) is arrested.

As John attempts to infiltrate the criminal underbelly, he teams up with Daniel (Jon Bernthal), an ex-con who works for him and is trying to get his life back in order. Like John, Daniel is trying to support a family of his own. Practically everything that happens in Snitch comes back to family, and the film drills that mentality of family is everything into your mind.

Most of the suspense is built from wondering whether or not John’s cover will be blown. There are some close calls, but it’s pretty straightforward. There are a few action scenes, particularly towards the end when John goes all out to take down the cartel. It’s these scenes that you see in the trailers that make it appear that Snitch is all about the car chases but that’s not the case. It’s about seeing how far a man can be pushed to his limit.

Snitch is mildly entertaining with some decent scenes in-between long, drawn out takes. It attempts to make you care deeply about the characters but doesn’t quite make it there. It’s an average film that falls short of becoming great.