Snitch

In Snitch, Dwayne Johnson plays John Matthews, the owner of a construction company who goes to extraordinary lengths to save his son from an unsympathetic and overly pragmatic legal system.  He fights his way through mounds of red tape and dozens of gangsters whose dialogue was clearly written by a white person but at no point does Matthews fight aliens, robots or any combination thereof, prompting the question: “Why?”  It seems like sort of a waste to pair a proficient action director with an action star in an action film that’s actually about 60-70% legal proceedings.  I mean, Snitch is completely watchable.  Johnson does a very serviceable job playing a toned-down real world character.  It’s just that I don’t want to see Dwayne Johnson in a taught family drama, I want to see the Rock in a Rock movie.

The Rock is a larger than life person.  He shouldn’t exist in movies about real life because he himself shouldn’t exist in real life.  I don’t want that to come off as some sort of anti-steroid rant.  I don’t care why the Rock looks like he does.  I fully support whatever it is, I just don’t care to look into it and I’m fine pretending he just lifts extra heavy weights to get that way.  It’s just weird to see him play the role of small business owner/father.  It puts us in a Jingle All The Way-type scenario where someone who looks like they could bench a house is playing a mattress salesman and we’re somehow just not even going to address it.

This might be more of a personal frustration.  The thing is that I really like the Rock.  He’s one of the most charming people alive.  I’ve always been sort of waiting for him to have his Terminator or Rambo – an action movie that’s so good you can just call it a movie.  As of now his most iconic starring role is a toss up between The Rundown and The Scorpion King.  I was sort of hoping the combination of him and Ric Waugh would be enough to get him, if not into Terminator territory, at least comfortably in the Predator zone.

 

Ric Waugh is an interesting young director.  His background is in stunt work, which may be why his first movie was about an assassin that decides to trade it all in for the much sexier lifestyle of a stunt man.  His second movie was Felon, a very well put-together action/drama that had a great mix of cheese and realism.  The combination of someone who knows how to make crashing a car look real cool and who also seems to have at least a basic grasp of tone and drama actually had me a little excited about this one.  And while Snitch isn’t necessarily a disappointment it’s a bit like seeing the son you’d always wanted to be a star quarterback win accountant of the year for his accounting firm.

Snitch is ultimately just a movie that the Rock happens to be in.  He does surprisingly well in his role but any number of dramatic actors could have done just as well or better.  That’s what I’m trying to say with all this – the Rock can’t just ‘go’ in a movie.  The movie should be about how awesome the Rock is or they should just get someone else.  He is an action star.  No matter how well he learns to act, he will never be an actor because actors are the people who sit on the bus and observe/imitate other people like them.  And the Rock is the dude who is lifting that bus over his head.

 

My final word on this movie isn’t ‘It’s like a really good Jingle All The Way’.  First of all, we’re still in the post-Oscar haze and if you’re looking to watch a movie that won’t make you hate it, you can do way worse that Snitch.  You could watch Die Hard 5, for instance.  Ric Waugh is also a director worth keeping an eye on.  He could one day be one of those guys that just knows how to put together an action blockbuster that you don’t have to feel guilty for watching.  So I guess my final word is that I just want more of the Rock, less Dwayne Johnson.  It’s great to see him stretch his wings a little and do some more serious dramatic acting.  But all I really want is another Fast 5.