SNITCH

Cole's Rating: ★★★

Thatcher's Rating: ★★★★
Jesse's Rating: ★★★

Year: 2013
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Jon Bernthal, Susan Sarandon
Genre: Action/Drama/Thriller
MPAA Rating: PG-13

        As I was sitting in the theater waiting for A Good Day To Die Hard to begin, I saw the preview for Snitch. I leaned over to my father who was beside me and I said, “Dad, I don’t have an interest in seeing that, it’ll be just like all those other bang-em-up, no plot movies.” I was referencing such movies as the movie at hand at the time, A Good Day To Die Hard. But I was horribly wrong. Snitch caught me by surprise, and didn’t let go.

        ‘Dwayne and Shane’, is what I like to call the great actors in the movie. In order to minimize his son’s jail time for being “snitched” by a friend for selling drugs, an inexperienced father, John Matthews (Dwayne Johnson) must find a way to catch ruthless drug dealers, and turn them into the police. The first name is obvious, 'Dwayne' for Dwayne Johnson. However the second, Jon Bernthal, who plays the co-worker of John, who helps him out by giving him an introduction to a drug cartel is not. Jon Bernthal starred in one of my favorite television series, AMC’s The Walking Dead, in which he played my favorite character, Shane. For the remainder of his entire career, no matter what character he plays, he will always be Shane to me. Both actors played their characters quite well. Dwayne’s performance was his best, in my opinion, but somewhat crippled by the majority of scenes that displayed poor dialogue, which seemed unnatural and forced. And Shane played a ex-con who struggles to keep clean and keep his family safe. So when he gets involved with John and this ordeal, he is put to the test. I will be saddened by not seeing him in this weeks episode of The Walking Dead, being as he was killed off on the show last season, which I have not gotten over yet. Sorry to those who are not caught up to this season, and have just been informed that the best character has died.

        Similar to my recent viewing of Argo, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie’s originality; it was based off of a true story. Great titles such as Catch Me If You Can, The Pianist, The Blind Side, and Alive are all great, original movies that successfully told a spectacular story such as this.

        I came out of the theater impressed with what a good movie this was, taken entirely by surprise. It was the perfect mix of explosion and emotion. Although the scenes of explosion had poor camera work and the depiction of the scene was fairly difficult, they still contributed to the films overall outcome. Jesse, my fellow film critic shared the same opinion on A Good Day To Die Hard, claiming that he couldn’t fully tell what was happening in the action scenes. That’s how I felt about this one. And I believe that one of the reasons this movie also thrived is because of the emotional tie with both John and Shane’s family. It added much effect to the movie. What better way to publicize the courageous and unforgettable story of a irreplaceable father than to produce a movie like Snitch?

Written by Cole Pollyea