Snitch

Directed by Ric Roman Waugh

(PG-13)

**

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“Snitch is not your typical Dwayne Johnson movie,” said Michael O’Sullivan in The Washington Post. The actor and former pro wrestler typically anchors family comedies or action pictures, but in this serious-minded drug-war drama, he plays a caring father trying to save his son from a long prison term, and we see him “doing everything in his power to seem like the clueless family man” he’s meant to be. “But Johnson’s screen presence, however charismatic, is out of sync with the rest of the picture,” said Stephen Holden in The New York Times. “With his booming superhero voice and hulking physique,” he’s just not convincing as a civilian who finds himself badly outgunned when he volunteers to go undercover for a prosecutor eager to take down a drug cartel. To me, he’s “terrific,” offering “a far more nuanced performance” than in any previous film, said Claudia Puig in USA Today. Snitch “lags somewhat” between its action-packed opening and closing, but its strength is still in its dramatic moments, and in its story about an ordinary dad facing a nightmare scenario.