Weekend Box Office part II: Stoker scores in limited while three wide newbies tank.

The best film of the weekend also had the best per-screen average of the weekend.  Fox Searchlight's Stoker earned $22,689 on each of its seven screens for a $158,000 opening weekend.  Now any number of films can open strong in limited only to tank as it goes wider, so now it's just a question of whether Fox Searchlight even bothers to expand it and how larger audiences react to what is clearly not a mainstream thriller. But for those in the mood for what it offers, it's delicious.  The other three newbies were, um, The Last Exorcism part II, 21 and Over, and Phantoms.  Let's make this quick.  The Last Exorcism part II was a case of CBS Films picking up a franchise that Lionsgate smartly knew was a one-and-done affair.  The original, which opened to $20 million in late 2010, was actually quite good, arguably among the best found footage horror films of the modern era.  But it wasn't something that demanded a sequel and its $8 million opening weekend should be a giant warning sign to the financial backers of Insidious 2 and Sinister 2, although if both films can keep their budgets similar to the $1-3 million that their respective predecessors cost, then they'll be profitable regardless. Even this new one cost just $5 million, so it will still make money.

Weekend Box Office (02/24/13): Identity Thief tops Oscar weekend, Snitch and Dark Skies open "okay".

I can't confirm this offhand, but I'm pretty sure Snitch has the biggest opening weekend of all time for a film based on a Frontline documentary.  The 'mandatory minimum sentences are evil' action drama debuted with $13 million this weekend.  That's not a huge figure, but it's above the sub-$8 million debuts from Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Jason Statham in the last two months.  Lionsgate/Summit procured the film for just $5 million, so this is a solid win all-around.  The picture played 77% 18-49 and 53% male, earning a B from Cinemascore.  The solid 3.17x weekend multiplier, especially considering the predicted Oscar drop today, means that the film may have legs and an outside shot at $45 million.  It's not a massive success, and it means that Dwayne Johnson needs a viable franchise to be 'box office', but for a film with nothing but The Rock to sell, this isn't a bad debut at all (it's higher than the $8 million debut for 2010's Faster, for example).  Johnson still has G.I. Joe: Retaliation next month and the sure to be *huge* Fast & Furious 6 on tap for May, so this almost qualifies as his "one for me" art film.  It's a good movie that I hope finds an audience and it's clearly a better choice for action junkies than A Good Day to Die Hard.

Review: Snitch (2013) is a potent political diatribe disguised as a solid B-movie action drama.

Snitch

2013
115 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

Writer/director Ric Roman Waugh and writer Justin Haythe's Snitch (trailer) operates on two levels.  On one hand, it's a pulpy and satisfying B-movie, a distinctly old-fashioned studio programmer about a normal man thrust into an abnormal situation.  The film is compelling and engaging, keeping its head to the ground in terms of plausibility and authenticity.  Even when the film chooses action, the action beats are small-scale and life-sized, which in turn makes them more suspenseful.  But the film also operates on a second level, that of a somewhat angry political polemic.  While the film doesn't go all-in in condemning the entire 'war on drugs', it sticks to a specific portion of that misguided policy and makes an unimpeachable case for its stupidity.  The film thus earns bonus points for being able to successfully mix social moralizing with its action drama while sacrificing little in the way of story or character.

Trailer: Dwayne Johnson vs. the 'War on Drugs' in Snitch.

The best documentary I saw in 2012 is Eugene Jarecki's The House I Live In.  I'll review the film closer to its actual January 15 VOD release date, but it's an all-encompassing detailing on the generational and often racial genocide that is our 'war on drugs'.  But it's also likely to not make one bit of difference in combating the outwardly insane drug policies in this country, if only because most people already know most of the outrages contained within and don't seem to care all that much.  Does a Dwayne Johnson action thriller have more hope of 'making a difference'?  I can't say, but the fact that far more people will surely see this policy discussion disguised as a B-movie action thriller perhaps automatically makes it a more worthwhile piece of proactive art.  The film itself looks pretty solid, most importantly seeming to keep the policies it critiques front-and-center even when the cars start blowing up.  The cast (Nadine Velazquez, Susan Sarandon, Michael Kenneth Williams, Harold Perrineau, Barry Pepper, Benjamin Bratt, and Melina Kanakaredes) looks solid and the film now has my complete attention.  Will it actually live up to its potential as a genuine piece of social examination?  Well, Snitch opens on February 23rd from Summit Entertainment.  As always, we'll see.

Scott Mendelson