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| Omar smells what the Rock is cooking, but does he dare say anything about it? |
The kid in front of me clapped loud enough for everybody in the theater to hear as he yelled at the teen on the screen facing jail time for holding a few pounds of ecstasy for his friend:
"That's right. Don't be no fucking snitch."
It was the eighth thing he had yelled at the screen, and we were only ten minutes into the movie. He didn't stop until the four girls he came with forced him to leave ten minutes before the movie ended.
He was that guy. The loudest nigger in the room. The reason people, ourselves included, don't like to go to movies with us. Truthfully, he was to be expected. The theater was a few miles outside of Baltimore, and the movie was Dwayne Johnson's (Rocky, as us old-school smarks call him) latest, the first in a four-month stretch of Rocky actioners, Snitch, as divisive a topic as any in the cradle of post-Mafioso Omerta.
His outbursts recalled the days of Carmelo Anthony and the Stop Snitching "campaign" that made anti-tattle-telling YouTube clips a viral controversy. But more than that, they reveal a mentality that permeates through every neighborhood where people, of any color or creed, adhere to a code made by people who would use, abuse, and snitch on others without compunction if it meant saving their hide or getting paid. Snitching isn't, as has never really been, the problem. the problem is the handful of disenfranchised souls who think that not snitching is going to make their lives any better in the eyes of a criminal element that treats them much like corporations and government organizations, the only difference being you die instead of getting fired.
It takes Snitch a good hour and a half to get around to that basic point,and when it does, it finally becomes a movie worth investing in. In Snitch, Rocky tries to flex the same acting muscle he did in Walking Tall, that of the decent man pushed into increasingly dire circumstances in an effort to save a young charge from the throes of the drug trade. This time, Rocky plays a Missouri trucking magnate turned government informant after his son gets caught in possession of enough ecstasy to warrant a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in the federal pen. With the help of Walking Dead's Jon Bernthal, as an ex-con trying to step lightly on the straight and narrow, Rocky attempts to outwit Susan Sarandon's conservative State's Attorney; the increasingly, egregiously typecast Michael K.Williams' small-time dealer; and Benjamin Bratt's stoic, barely believable Cartel kingpin to save his son.
For most of its runtime, Snitch plays like an extended arc of a "gritty" cable police drama, think Southland or The Wire minus the graphic anything. It is a slow-burn that treads desperately close to being boring because the plot is 80% setup, 20% execution. Director Ric Roman Waugh spends an almost inordinate amount of time imposing indie sensibilities on a late February action flick. Snitch is replete with long, quiet shots, grainy sound filters, and jitter-cam action sequences meant to evoke the realism of a tale purported to be based on true events (the plural is the key there). While this artistry and meticulousness contribute to some adequate character development and add some very necessary gravitas, it runs the risk of losing an audience that has entered the theater with a potentially negative perception of the subject matter.
See, Snitch lives and dies on perception. While the Brahma Bull does an admirable job of playing a man who is both pushed to his limit and out of his depth, his wall-like frame, undeniable charisma, and the unavoidable perception associated with both prevent him from ever seeming truly outmatched. Rocky fails to seem truly threatened because audiences have been trained to never see him as a victim, no matter how much he jobs for the first fifteen minutes of his wrestling matches. When he walks into a Williams' spot in his first attempt to make a connect he can offer up to Sarandon, he is so massive and reticent that it's hard to believe he couldn't clear the room single-handedly. Perception. It's a mother. Omar knows.
But, there's a more acute issue of perception at work between Snitch and it's target demographic. Ideally, this flick is aimed squarely at males 13-35. Many of those males will be men of color. A fair amount of those men of color will probably come from lower-middle to impoverished neighborhoods. Neighborhoods where snitches are akin the most detestable vermin imaginable. Long story and snappy prose short: it's a bit of a hard sell.
This was obvious from the audience's push-pull reaction to the flick. For every 50 or so people who were quietly invested in the story of the noble father trying to save his son, there were at least two--consistently Black males--who booed or cursed at the very concept of the snitch being a hero. Suffice to say, Snitch will probably do gangbusters in middle to upper class areas, but it'll struggle to gain ground with "urban" audiences after opening week. But opening week is all that matters anyway, right?
What may matter more is the notion that has spread among young boys like the noisy bama in front of me and others like him. The ones who think being tight-lipped guarantees them loyalty from hustlers, bangers, and kingpins. That it will make them any less of a disposable resource to these underground corporations that dump bodies instead of pink slips. That it might give them a leg up in climbing the ladder to nowhere, which is so much more preferable than climbing that same ladder with a pension and health insurance plan attached. Snitching may not be the "noblest" way to conduct oneself in the "streets", but what makes kids like the mouthy mofo in front me think the "streets" are going to treat them any better if they keep quiet is nothing more than blindness, a blindness that was put on front street most recently in Scorcese's The Departed.
Like Snitch, we are only at our best in these situations when we accept that undeniable law of nature: we are a disposable resource. However, as disposable as we may be to other people and forces beyond our control, we still achieve more when we work and fight for ourselves. It's only when Rocky realizes that fact, that neither side cares and he will have to create his own solution, that he truly becomes a relatable, admirable hero. It's not rocket science. But, kids like the one in front of me aren't rocket scientists. They hold onto to the very same institutions that multiple narratives, fictional and non-fictional, have revealed to be callous and uncaring. And they'll continue to hold onto them until they've been locked up because the dude they didn't snitch on snitches on them.
For most of its runtime, Snitch plays like an extended arc of a "gritty" cable police drama, think Southland or The Wire minus the graphic anything. It is a slow-burn that treads desperately close to being boring because the plot is 80% setup, 20% execution. Director Ric Roman Waugh spends an almost inordinate amount of time imposing indie sensibilities on a late February action flick. Snitch is replete with long, quiet shots, grainy sound filters, and jitter-cam action sequences meant to evoke the realism of a tale purported to be based on true events (the plural is the key there). While this artistry and meticulousness contribute to some adequate character development and add some very necessary gravitas, it runs the risk of losing an audience that has entered the theater with a potentially negative perception of the subject matter.
See, Snitch lives and dies on perception. While the Brahma Bull does an admirable job of playing a man who is both pushed to his limit and out of his depth, his wall-like frame, undeniable charisma, and the unavoidable perception associated with both prevent him from ever seeming truly outmatched. Rocky fails to seem truly threatened because audiences have been trained to never see him as a victim, no matter how much he jobs for the first fifteen minutes of his wrestling matches. When he walks into a Williams' spot in his first attempt to make a connect he can offer up to Sarandon, he is so massive and reticent that it's hard to believe he couldn't clear the room single-handedly. Perception. It's a mother. Omar knows.
But, there's a more acute issue of perception at work between Snitch and it's target demographic. Ideally, this flick is aimed squarely at males 13-35. Many of those males will be men of color. A fair amount of those men of color will probably come from lower-middle to impoverished neighborhoods. Neighborhoods where snitches are akin the most detestable vermin imaginable. Long story and snappy prose short: it's a bit of a hard sell.
This was obvious from the audience's push-pull reaction to the flick. For every 50 or so people who were quietly invested in the story of the noble father trying to save his son, there were at least two--consistently Black males--who booed or cursed at the very concept of the snitch being a hero. Suffice to say, Snitch will probably do gangbusters in middle to upper class areas, but it'll struggle to gain ground with "urban" audiences after opening week. But opening week is all that matters anyway, right?
What may matter more is the notion that has spread among young boys like the noisy bama in front of me and others like him. The ones who think being tight-lipped guarantees them loyalty from hustlers, bangers, and kingpins. That it will make them any less of a disposable resource to these underground corporations that dump bodies instead of pink slips. That it might give them a leg up in climbing the ladder to nowhere, which is so much more preferable than climbing that same ladder with a pension and health insurance plan attached. Snitching may not be the "noblest" way to conduct oneself in the "streets", but what makes kids like the mouthy mofo in front me think the "streets" are going to treat them any better if they keep quiet is nothing more than blindness, a blindness that was put on front street most recently in Scorcese's The Departed.
Like Snitch, we are only at our best in these situations when we accept that undeniable law of nature: we are a disposable resource. However, as disposable as we may be to other people and forces beyond our control, we still achieve more when we work and fight for ourselves. It's only when Rocky realizes that fact, that neither side cares and he will have to create his own solution, that he truly becomes a relatable, admirable hero. It's not rocket science. But, kids like the one in front of me aren't rocket scientists. They hold onto to the very same institutions that multiple narratives, fictional and non-fictional, have revealed to be callous and uncaring. And they'll continue to hold onto them until they've been locked up because the dude they didn't snitch on snitches on them.
