Snitch (2013) * * 1/2

Directed by:  Ric Roman Waugh

Starring:  Dwayne Johnson, Jon Bernthal, Barry Pepper, Susan Sarandon, Benjamin Bratt, Michael K. Williams, Rafi Savron

How is the "War On Drugs" expected to be won when the system is set up as quasi-McCarthyism?    In Snitch, teenager Jason Collins (Savron) receives a call from a friend asking to accept a drug package to hold for him.    Collins refuses, but the package is sent to him anyway.     As soon as Collins opens it, his home is swarmed by DEA agents in an obvious sting operation.     The friend was pinched for drug distribution and was forced to set up Jason to get his sentence reduced or commuted.     Jason is now facing a mandatory 10-year prison term for distribution.   The DEA is figuring they will eventually land a big fish this way, but it requires a certain degree of amorality to have friends set up their other innocent friends.  

Any decent lawyer could likely get the case thrown out, especially since Jason never even opened the giant bag of pills in the box.    In Snitch, Jason's father John Matthews (Johnson), is forced to take extreme measures in order to free his son, which means he seeks out a drug dealer and sets him up.    For John, though, this involves a dangerous game in which he is clearly in over his head.     John also has to implicate an ex-con (Bernthal) who works for him and is trying to rebuild his life.    The ex-con, Daniel, initially wants no part in the scheme, but John's lucrative offer of $20,000 helps grease the rails. 

A refreshing aspect of Snitch is how Matthews is simply an ordinary man caught up in nightmarish circumstances.     With an action star like Johnson playing Matthews, you expect him to be inexplicably able to beat up 10 guys at once and shoot a gun like a professional marksman.    However, after receiving a beatdown at the hands of local thugs he was trying to set up, we see that John Matthews isn't one for fisticuffs and firing weapons even though he is a tall hulk of a man.     He has to use his brains and a little luck to figure his way out of this situation, which becomes all the more dangerous when drug kingpins like El Topo (Bratt) and Malik (Williams) enter the scene.   

Matthews also has moral tug of wars with both a veteran DEA agent (Pepper) and the local Federal prosecutor seeking higher office (Sarandon).    They see how Matthews is getting in deeper and deeper and even sympathize with him, but they also feel nabbing the big catch may have to take precedent.     It's a shame that Matthews would have to go to such lengths to free his son, but that's the game the "War On Drugs" has set up.  

Dwayne Johnson moves through the film with authority.    He is of course a big guy due to his past as a professional wrestler, but he displays intelligence and determination.    He is not a one-dimensional action star.    He proves in Snitch that as an actor he is not out of his depth, even in scenes with veterans like Oscar-winner Sarandon and Pepper.   The only thing that really kept me from enjoying Snitch thoroughly was that it isn't amped up to the suspense and energy levels one would normally see in a thriller.    Perhaps this is because you kinda sorta know that Matthews won't fail.   After all, who wants to see an ending in which Jason has to wind up serving 10 years in prison getting brutalized by thugs?     Snitch, however, is a lot better than I anticipated, because it is plausible and is more interested in showing that the war against drug cartels comes down to saving one's hide by "naming names."