When the Cheshire emerges...

As promised, here's last week's review. Better than The Hangover Part III.

Snitch (M)

Looking out for each other in the most general sense is a core societal function. Communities band together through the good and the bad, and laws are made to make sure those who are doing the right thing are safe and those not are punished.

Bringing that into question brings about moral conflict and disarray. The United States is suggested to have found itself in that position, home to a legal system wrought with the concept humans are easily swayed into betrayal for their own benefit.

Jason (Rafi Gavron) is a teenager caught in that trap when busted for possessing a large amount of pills. He was set up by his best friend, who had his own jail time reduced as a result. When Jason finds his only way out is to snitch, he refuses.

Moral standing is all well and good, but the situation doesn't cut it with his father John (Dwayne Johnson). A construction business owner who makes a deal to work with the government and capture drug dealer Malik (Michael K Williams), John is desperate to regain the son he had once almost lost.

The seedy and flourishing areas of a Midwestern American city are highlighted with stark result. John and his family live well, but he has to lie about what he's doing to reduce Jason's sentence. His connection to the drug world Daniel (Jon Bernthal) is an ex-con in the slums trying to do his best to stay honest and clean for his own family.

There's doubt placed in John's faith from the top end as he finds Agent Cooper (Barry Pepper) and Joanne (Susan Sarandon) at arms length with him and each other. It's a test of wills for a man forced into an impossible situation.

Johnson moves into more serious territory in this role and does it without fuss. He is the film's pivot as both emotional father and resilient crim catcher, able to balance the two nicely. But Bernthal is just as good as Daniel, finding the fight to do the right thing even if it means taking a step back.
Inspired by a documentary about the changes to the United States federal drug policy encouraging the incarcerated to snitch on their accomplices, it raises those questions about moral structure in society and where we stand.

Waugh's offering can't provide the answer in any straightforward form. Instead, with guns introduced as the violence escalates, it subconsciously raises another, more pressing, question of the day. There's no easy solution to that one either.

Rating: 3.5/5