Stop Snitching or Don't - The Bosses Don't Care: A Look at Snitch

Omar smells what the Rock is cooking, but does he dare say anything about it?

WARNING: DISCRETION ADVISED - THIS POST CONTAINS MATURE LANGUAGE.

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.

Review - Contraband

Grade: D

Yin: Languid pacing and one-note characters quickly undo this rote rehash of typical criminal actioners.

Yang: Grim and dingy aesthetic reveals the griminess of often-overlooked smuggling culture.

In-Between: Ever wonder if Memphis Raines little brother turned his life around? He didn’t.

TV networks are always trying to mimic the HBO formula. Their attempts to create compelling, meditative dramas that peek into unexplored cultures has led to turgid, funereal, slow-paced exercises in character and plot building with variable success. This approach is acceptable on TV because languid pacing is part and parcel of the medium. Applying such an approach to film can be successful depending on the genre or narrative, but it is not necessarily the best approach for a “white-knuckle” action thriller. Hence the problem with Mark Wahlberg’s latest, Contraband.

Based on 2008 Icelandic film Reykjavik-Rotterdam, which starred Contraband director Baltasar Kormakur, Contraband follows retired smuggler Chris Farraday (Mark Wahlberg) as he is forced to do the requisite ‘one last job’ after ne’er-do-well brother-in-law Andy (Caleb Landry Jones) gets in deep with some local heavies led by Giovanni Ribisi, here practically reprising and extending on his role from Gone in 60 Seconds. Chris reluctantly takes the job, much to chagrin of wife Kate (Kate Beckinsale), but seemingly to the reserved agreement of longtime friend and recovering alcoholic Sebastian (Ben Foster). All Chris has to do to save his brother-in-law is forge his way onto a Panama-bound freighter, pick up some primo counterfeit sheets, and drop the load back at the Port of New Orleans. Simple, right? Of course not. Complications and the occasional gunfire ensue, and Chris is eventually forced to outrun drug lords, a slimy sea captain (J.K. Simmons), and, most frighteningly, US Customs and Border Patrol as he attempts to save his brother-in-law and return to his family in one piece.

On paper, this sounds terribly exciting. In fact, the TV ads sell Contraband with shots of slow-mo explosions and gunfights, all with rap music thumping in background. It’s a shame that action makes up less than five minutes of this crawling bore. While I can appreciate Kormakur’s ambition to establish atmosphere and play around with typical action movie pacing, Contraband suffers immensely for such experimentation. Nothing truly compelling happens for the first half-hour, at least nothing that seasoned filmgoers haven’t seen more than a dozen times. Screw-up brother. Check. Square-jawed roguish protagonist who loves his family and only wishes to leave behind his regrettable past. Check. Shady best friend. Check. Dangerous thug/criminal who is nowhere near as smart or tough as the hero. Check. This is, note for note, the setup for any typical crime actioner with criminal protagonists. If Kormakur thinks he’s doing something different by setting this in N’awlins and trying ape the feel of HBO’s Treme then allow me to direct him to a little movie called 12 Rounds, also starring a square jawed Boston tough guy ‘actor’. Making matters infinitely worse is the snail’s speed pacing that is common for most European films, often a boon but outright detrimental here. I was impressed I made it through the first half awake because nobody else in my row did.

The performances in Contraband do little to ease the suffering. Mark Wahlberg continues to play the smartest, toughest guy in the room, despite wandering around with a confused look on his face until things get serious. Kate Beckinsale shows little range in the consistently thankless role of the simultaneously disapproving then supportive then disapproving wife and mother. Poor Ben Foster and Giovanni Ribisi fare even worse as they are saddled with broadly drawn roles as shady and slimy, respectively. I feel particularly bad for Ribisi who is forced to use a pitiful squeaky voice throughout in a half-assed effort to appear dangerous and grimy.

Interestingly, griminess is the one thing, aside from languid pacing, that Contraband excels at. Everything about Contrband looks dirty, dark, and dingy, from the characters to the settings to the aesthetic. Sure, New Orleans and Panama have their fare share of unkempt, less-than-desirable neighborhoods, but, based on Contraband, that’s all these cities seem to have. Despite general underachievement on almost all fronts, Contraband does provide some insight into an culture of criminal activity that hasn’t been explored, at least in American television and film, since the second season of The Wire, which addressed this type of crime far more masterfully despite being one of the least popular seasons of the show. You could do far better things with your time and money than wasting them on Contraband. Come to think of it, if you really want to see a gripping, slow burn drama, albeit with slightly less action, about smuggling, just rent or download season 2 of The Wire. I assure you the twelve hours will feel infinitely shorter than the two you would be tempted to waste on this clunker.