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Snitch (film)

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Wykypydya (talk | contribs) at 06:30, 5 September 2016 (Expanding on the earlier part of the plot (much of which was previously omitted), and describing a major fundamental problem with the plot (i.e. the narcotics central to the plot were planted; movie misses the point it was trying to make).). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Not to be confused with Snatch (film).
Snitch
Theatrical release poster
Directed byRic Roman Waugh
Written byJustin Haythe
Ric Roman Waugh
Produced byDwayne Johnson
Nigel Sinclair
Matt Jackson
Jonathan King
Dany Garcia
Alex Brunner
Tobin Armbrust
Pargat Gill
StarringDwayne Johnson
Barry Pepper
Susan Sarandon
Benjamin Bratt
Jon Bernthal
Michael Kenneth Williams
CinematographyDana Gonzales
Edited byJonathan Chibnall
Music byAntonio Pinto
Production
companies
Distributed bySummit Entertainment
Lionsgate
Release date
  • February 22, 2013 (2013-02-22) (United States)
Running time
112 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$15 million[1]
Box office$57.8 million[2][3]

Snitch is a 2013 American crime drama film directed by Ric Roman Waugh and starring Dwayne Johnson. The film was released in the United States on February 22, 2013. The film also stars Barry Pepper, Susan Sarandon, Jon Bernthal, Benjamin Bratt and Michael Kenneth Williams.

Plot

The film opens with Jason Collins (Rafi Gavron), the 18-year-old estranged son of construction company owner John Matthews (Dwayne Johnson), video-chatting with his childhood best friend Craig Johnson (James Allen McCune). After discussing a party that recently occurred, Craig brings up the subject of drugs that he is attempting to move. Craig attempts to persuade Jason to abet moving the drugs, offering him a share of the profit. Jason replies, "Nah, I'm good, man." Craig responds that Jason does not have to do anything, and that Craig simply needs to ship the box to Collins' house (as he cannot fly on an airplane with the drugs). Jason responds, "I don't know, bro." Craig continues to persuade Jason to engage in the drug trafficking, offering to let Jason have some of the drugs. As the conversation is about to be interrupted by a ringing telephone and Jason's mother Sylvie Collins (Melina Kanakaredes) entering the house, Craig says he will text Jason the tracking number, to which Jason replies "No, no-no-no, don't --" before closing the laptop and ending the conversation.

John Matthews (Dwayne Johnson), Jason's father and owner of a construction company, does some business negotiations and prepares to leave work for the day. He sees Daniel James (Jon Bernthal), a new employee, doing overtime work, and helps him with it.

Later, back at the Collins house, a courier delivers a package to the house. The courier knocks on the front door and Jason, albeit being somewhat suspicious, answers. The delivery man says he has a package for Jason Collins and requests a signature; Jason signs and accepts the package. Jason brings the package to his bedroom, opens it, and discovers that it contains a large amount of pills in a bag, at which Jason is astonished. Jason takes out the bag of pills and discovers a governmental tracking device. Immediately, DEA officers come to the house and loudly announce their presence and demand that the door be opened. As the officers break into the house, Jason escapes out the window of the bedroom and runs away. The officers pursue and chase after Jason until he is surrounded at a parking lot; Agent Cooper (Barry Pepper) subdues Jason at gunpoint, at which point the other officers apprehend Jason.

While at a barbecue, John receives a call from his ex-wife Sylvie about his estranged son Jason having being arrested. John and Sylvie meet at the police station and discuss the situation while waiting to be allowed to speak to Jason. An investigator speaks with them, saying that Craig set Jason up in a sting operation to reduce his own sentence after being caught. Jason's charges carry a minimum of 10 years in prison.

Jason is arraigned in court where he is denied bail. Jason is put in an interview room with the investigator, John, and Sylvie. In the interview, Jason is pressured to plead guilty to narcotics trafficking and to set up one of his own friends for drug trafficking in order to reduce his own sentence.

Using his connections, John arranges several meetings with the local US Attorney Joanne Keeghan (Susan Sarandon), who is running a very aggressive anti-drug campaign to bolster her chances for election to Congress. Joanne agrees to reduce Jason's sentence if John will inform on a drug dealer, but states that he'll receive little help from her and that the risk will be all his.

John visits Jason in prison, observing that Jason is being badly brutalized behind the prison walls. John feels responsible because he was not there for his son, and becomes desperate as he realizes that Jason may be killed before he finishes his prison sentence.

Agent Cooper (Barry Pepper) leads a task force which will monitor any dealings John arranges to use as evidence for an arrest. John searches through his employee records and finds an employee on his payroll with two former distribution convictions. Daniel James (Jon Bernthal), the employee John met earlier, is currently leading a clean life to avoid a third strike, because he now has a wife and young son to care for. John offers twenty thousand dollars if Daniel will simply introduce him to a dealer. Daniel initially refuses but later agrees so that he can move to a safer apartment for his son, though he is unaware that John is acting as an informant.

Daniel introduces John to Malik, an extremely dangerous, high-ranking local drug dealer, who like Daniel has two strikes. Explaining that his business cannot stay afloat in the current economy without a supplement to its revenues, John offers to run nearly limitless amounts of drugs at almost zero risk in his freight trucks. Because his is a legitimate business, the trucks avoid suspicion and carry too much freight to be thoroughly searched. Malik agrees under the one condition that John and Daniel drive the initial run themselves.

John and Agent Cooper arrange for several wire taps to be put in place to catch the transactions involved. John drives to the pick-up point near the Mexican border. In the process, a rival gang ambushes the pick-up, but John manages a daring escape, impressing cartel kingpin Juan Carlos "El Topo" Pintera (Benjamin Bratt), whose cartel successfully fights off the ambushers. John successfully completes his end of the deal, delivering the drugs to Malik while under surveillance by Agent Cooper. Malik mentions a meeting with cartel members higher than himself: Cooper, hoping to catch the higher priority targets, refuses to arrest Malik during the deal. Keeghan claims Cooper did the right thing and refuses to reduce Jason's sentence unless John cooperates in a second meeting. John, outraged, agrees only if Jason is released when the job is completed, rather than just a reduction in sentence. Around this time, Daniel finds out about the arrangement John made with the police and is furious, saying that the cartel will kill John, Daniel, and their families if the truth comes out. John and Daniel send their families into hiding.

John meets with Juan Carlos Pintera under much higher cartel security than he has seen so far. Juan wants John to run nearly $100 million in drug profits into Mexico, back to the cartel base of operations, and offers to make John a member of the cartel's inner circle if he succeeds. John reports this back to Keeghan and Cooper. Keeghan is ecstatic about finding such a large target, but Cooper has a change of heart and tries to talk John out of doing the run because he suspects the cartel will kill him afterward.

John devises a plan to free himself and Daniel from both the government and the cartel. During the run, John is able to escape Cooper's surveillance. At the same time, Daniel raids Malik's house, killing Malik's guards and wounding Malik. Before dying, Malik reveals Juan Carlos's cell phone number to Daniel. John calls Cooper and has him track both his new cell phone and Juan Carlos's phone, effectively giving Cooper both the money and the kingpin at once. After a highway chase and shoot-out, caused by the cartel's realization that John is an informant, John escapes. Cartel members and the money are seized by Cooper's men. Juan Carlos is also captured; he is unwilling to get into a shoot-out with federal agents, because his young son is with him.

The film ends with Jason being released the next day. John and his family go into the witness protection program. Daniel refuses to go into the program, saying he and his family will go into hiding on their own. Because Daniel has lost his job, John leaves Daniel the large reward check that John was supposed to receive for the capture of Juan Carlos.

Cast

Production

Snitch is directed by Ric Roman Waugh and written by Waugh and Justin Haythe. The project was first set up in 2004 by Guy East and Nigel Sinclair, partners at Spitfire Pictures. They were inspired by a Frontline documentary about how changes to the federal drug policy of the United States encouraged the incarcerated to snitch on their accomplices. Justin Haythe wrote the initial screenplay, and Waugh was hired to rewrite it. In March 2011, actor Dwayne Johnson was cast in the film's starring role.[4] Filming began in December 2011 in Bossier City, Louisiana,[5] and it concluded on January 19, 2012.[6]

Release

Snitch was released on February 22, 2013 in the United States and Canada. The film is distributed by Lionsgate subsidiary Summit Entertainment.[7]

Reception

Box office

Snitch opened in 2,511 theaters in The United States and grossed $13,167,607 with an average of $5,244 per theater and ranking #2 at the box office. The film ultimately earned $42,930,462 domestically and $14,894,212 internationally for a total of $57,824,674.[2][3]

Critical response

Snitch received mixed reviews from critics and has a "rotten" score of 56% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 140 reviews with an average rating of 5.6 out of 10. The critical consensus states, "Though it features one of Dwayne Johnson's more thoughtful performances, the presentation of Snitch's underlying message is muddled by lackluster storytelling and some tonal inconsistencies."[8] The film also has a score of 51 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 34 critics indicating "Mixed or average reviews."[9]

Controversy

The movie has a major underlying problem with its plot: the premise upon which the character Jason is arrested and prosecuted does not make sense, because the drugs were mailed to Jason with the government's complicity. In this way, the drugs were planted on Jason, and Jason was entrapped into possessing the drugs. The beginning of the film clearly shows that Jason did not even consent to receiving the drugs, saying "Nah, I'm good man," "I don't know, bro," and "No no-no-no, don't" in response to Craig offering him the drugs. Since Craig was working with law enforcement, the video chat should at least have been recorded or observed by the DEA, which would have clearly proven Jason innocent of accepting any narcotics or being complicit in their trafficking. Jason did accept the package in spite of appearing suspicious about it, but he could not clearly be certain of the package's contents until opening it, at which point he was immediately apprehended by the DEA without even having an opportunity to make any other decisions regarding what to do with the contraband. Jason did run away from the DEA agents, but the film shows that he was likely running in terror, and this is all that he should have been criminally guilty of, if anything at all. Jason is charged with distribution of narcotics, which makes very little sense as Jason did not do even anything evincing intent to distribute the drugs.

Jason makes the mistake of not requesting an attorney. In the real world in the United States, anyone in a situation like the one Jason was in in the film should request an attorney at the outset, and such a case would likely be easy to get dismissed because the government directly supplied the drugs to an unwilling recipient.

Due to this fundamental flaw in the plot, the film largely misses the point that its authors were attempting to make about snitches and mandatory minimum sentences; instead it is really about the government framing an innocent person by planting drugs on them via the mails.

References

  1. ^ "http://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Snitch-(2013)#tab=summary". Retrieved 5 June 2016. {{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help)
  2. ^ a b "Snitch (2013) - Box Office Mojo". Retrieved 5 June 2016.
  3. ^ a b "Snitch (2013) - International Box Office Results - Box Office Mojo". Retrieved 5 June 2016.
  4. ^ McNary, Dave (March 22, 2011). "Dwayne Johnson to star in 'Snitch'". Variety.
  5. ^ Sneider, Jeff (November 16, 2011). "Kanakaredes, Velazquez join 'Snitch'". Variety.
  6. ^ Sneider, Jeff (December 6, 2011). "Benjamin Bratt hitches to 'Snitch'". Variety.
  7. ^ McNary, Dave (September 18, 2012). "Lionsgate sets 'Snitch' release". Variety.
  8. ^ "Snitch". 22 February 2013. Retrieved 5 June 2016.
  9. ^ "Snitch". Retrieved 5 June 2016.
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