CinemaSerf

This mundane vehicle for Dwayne Johnson seems more intent on shining a light on seemingly rather arbitrary US federal narcotics legislation than breaking any ground as a drama. He is successful businessman “Matthews” whose son “Jason” (Rafi Gavron) finds himself embroiled in some drug trafficking for which he seems destined to spend ten years in jail. Dad and lad aren’t exactly close, but there’s no way he is going to allow him to grow old in prison so “Matthews” does a deal with the shrewd and politically ambitious DA “Keeghan” (Susan Sarandon) to infiltrate a ruthless cartel and deliver their leader and his stash of cash to her. In return, she will cut the boy some slack on sentencing. Despite the scepticism of the veteran DEA agent “Cooper” (Barry Pepper) but with the assistance of reformed character “Daniel” (Jon Bernthal) he finds himself immersed in a brutal scenario where one wrong move is going to see him feeding the fishes. What now follows is entirely procedural stuff with the usual shoot ‘em ups, car chases and fifth columnists to keep the pace moving along energetically if not exactly originally. Sarandon doesn’t appear enough to make much difference and it does seem uncertain as to how it wants to end, so drags that out into an overlong truck chase that looks like it was filmed on a very quiet Sunday morning and that can really only end one way. It’s watchable but entirely forgettable stuff.