Snitch review – Dwayne shows his tender side

For every action-movie star who proves himself capable in other movie genres, there’s a handful of other big-screen brawlers who never quite find their comfort zone outside blood-and-bullets cinema. Over the last ten years, Dwayne

 “The Rock” Johnson has done a nice job of proving he’s one of the former and not the latter with films like 2003′s action-comedy The Rundown and a role in the 2005 comedy Be Cool that was one of the few bright spots in an otherwise disappointing movie. In Snitch, Johnson ventures further outside the straight-up action genre with a tense thriller that proves he he doesn’t need to punch, shoot, or body-slam anyone to carry a movie.

Directed and co-written by former stunt actor Ric Roman Waugh, Snitch follows trucking company owner John Matthews (Johnson) as he attempts to infiltrate a dangerous drug-dealing operation in order to save his son from an unjust prison sentence handed down by federal prosecutors. As he gets pulled deeper into the murky waters of drug trafficking and a complicated undercover investigation, Matthews finds himself uncertain of where to turn for help protecting himself, his son, and everyone close to him.

Despite the potential for some intense action sequences, Snitch remains relatively free of butt-kicking moments – especially where Johnson is concerned.

 The story and tone remain firmly entrenched in the world of dramatic thrillers, and Johnson does a nice job of playing Matthews as a believable fish-out-of-water in the violence-prone drug world who looks terribly out of place amid all of the gritty dealings going on around him.

And that’s the real magic of Johnson’s performance in Snitch: his ability to play a compelling character despite his size, not because of it.

At no point in Snitch does Johnson’s character seem to consider violence as the first – or last, for that matter – solution to the problems he encounters throughout the story. There’s no moment when he gets fed up with a henchman and throws him through a window or overcomes a cartel kingpin with a brutal blast from a shotgun. He’s just a big guy from the suburbs with a nice house and a pool, and Johnson does a fantastic job of testing the character’s limits without ever making him feel like something he’s not. By making his flaws and shortcoming seem very real, Johnson and Waugh make the character’s victories – and the stakes of what he’s doing – seem that much more real, too.