Snitch (1998)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Ted Demme

Writer:

Mike Armstrong (writer)

Release Date:

25 September 1998 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

Every city has one.

Plot:

A small time hoodlum is divided between his conscience and loyalty to his boss when his cousin is murdered.

Plot Keywords:

Cousin | Gun | Irish American | Car Thief | Revenge

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Denis Leary	...	Bobby O'Grady
Ian Hart	...	Mouse
Jason Barry	...	Seamus
Lenny Clarke	...	Skunk
Kevin Chapman	...	Mickey Pat
George MacDonald	...	Gallivan (as George Macdonald)
John Diehl	...	Digger
Lyndon Byers	...	Fitzie
Herbie Ade	...	Herbie
Noah Emmerich	...	Red
Famke Janssen	...	Katy
Melissa Fitzgerald	...	Sheila
Don Gavin	...	Brosnihan
Billy Crudup	...	Teddy
Colm Meaney	...	Jackie O'Hara

Also Known As:

Noose (Australia) (DVD title) (USA) (working title)
Monument Ave. (USA) (new title)
Talk of the Town (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for pervasive strong language, drug use and violence.

Runtime:

93 min | Australia:90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Canada:14A (Ontario) | Iceland:12 | Spain:13 | UK:18 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Barry Playground - Chelsea Street & Mystic River, Charlestown, Massachusetts, USA

Company:

Apostle

Quotes:

Mouse: [Mouse and Bobby approaching Sheila and Katy] I know I might like her, but sometimes she's a different person. I don't know what she's gonna be one moment to the next.
Bobby O'Grady: Don't say anything.
[to Katy and Sheila]
Bobby O'Grady: Hey, whats goin' on?
Katy: Boys.
Mouse: Hey, Sheila.
Sheila: Hey, Mouse.
Mouse: That's a nice sweater.
Sheila: It's a, uh, blouse, Mouse.
Mouse: Yeah, it's nice.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Comedy Central Roast of Denis Leary (2003) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Black Love

Billy Bulger, This is your BROTHER, Whitey!!!!

From the current FBI's 10 Most Wanted List, we have a paralleling movie. As I write this, the Boston Police Dept., State Police and FBI stand indicted as co-conspirators in keeping Whitey Bulger out of the hands of the law. In Charlestown, the code of silence is slowly being broken as more Irish wake up to the fact that mobsterism is for the 'boids'.

Yet this movie really awakens you to how insidious the silly hi-jinks of youth (e.g., causing all the car alarms on the street to go off at one time) can really be. These kids then move on up into guilt by association, and slowly get rubbed out by the head mobster they have admired, and who even has the gall to pay for the funerals of those he kills/has killed. It's going on right now, folks, right here in Boston....but just not as much.

When the facts are in about Whitey Bulger, No. 1 guy on the FBI's most wanted , whose brother is chancellor of the Univ. of Ma. and formerly president of the Ma. Senate, you'll see a lot more parallels from this movie. The only logic test it failed was, "How could those parents NOT know their son and his buddies were sniffing coke in their home?"

This show is ALMOST a documentary of current life in south Boston. As someone with Scotch-Irish ancestry, I think of the Raytheon engineer whose mother took her husband's life insurance and moved to Stoughton from this Irish ghetto ....and marvel at his escape from the degraded lives portrayed here. See it. Take your teen-age kids to see it. Better than Sunday school.