Snitch (2013)

The story here is not the least bit subtle.  Take home message: mandatory drug sentencing laws are bad on many levels.  They send first time offenders to jail for long periods of time while the king pin violent drug runners go free and are largely unpursuable.  The offer that if you roll on somebody else then your sentence is reduced gives the kid who has a limited drug background no options, and how does it serve the best interests of society to put that kid in jail for a decade or more?

The movie is loosely based on a true story of a father who attempted to hook up with some serious bad guys in an effort to get his son out of trouble.  In real life it did not work at all, but in the version, the father is The Rock, who also conveniently owns a trucking company.  With ex-cons working for him who have drug trafficking charges in their jackets. Duane Johnson has no difficulty pulling off the bad ass, no fear when the bullets start flying and people start dying persona, but many ordinary people are not so gifted.   Nothing about this movie is realistic except that the danger of getting caught with drugs in an era of mandatory sentencing is disproportionate to the crime and that needs to be changed for all sorts of reasons.  If you are lookin gfor an action adventure movie, this very competently executes that genre as well.