The Grateful Dead

Both Snitch and its co-star Jon Bernthal defy expectations. Snitch at first glance looks like the same old same old, the title indicating a gritty crime thriller, the image of a towering, pistol-wielding Dwayne Johnson on the poster only reinforcing the idea. And Bernthal, a burly ex-athlete whose best-known performance to date – as Deputy Shane Walsh on the pay-TV series The Walking Dead – saw him portraying a man whose desire to protect and then possess the family of his best friend gradually spiral into violent psychopathy, looks like the type of bruiser who could dismantle the average person without breaking much of a sweat.

Jon Bernthal in The Walking Dead - before

But there's a little more on Snitch's mind that the typical action-movie guns'n'poses, with director and co-writer Ric Roman Waugh keen to explore the potential flaws and inequities of America's mandatory-sentence policy for drug-related offences through the story of Johnson's character John Matthews, a construction-company owner who strikes dangerous bargains with both the authorities and the underworld in a bid to secure his son's freedom after the teenager is ensnared in a trafficking sting.

Matthews' go-between in the risky plan is one of his employees, Bernthal's Daniel James, a former gang member and “two-striker” facing life behind bars if convicted of another crime. Desperate to stay legit for the sake of his wife and young son but susceptible to the cash lure dangled by Matthews, James is reluctantly drawn back to the life he turned his back on.

Jon Bernthal in The Walking Dead - after

Even as his Walking Dead character became murderously unstable, Bernthal pulled off the admirable feat of expressing Shane's underlying humanity. And he does an even more impressive job in Snitch, expertly balancing the seemingly contradictory shades of an ex-con respected by his criminal colleagues and a loving family man who wants nothing more than to go straight.

Ensuring that his characters are “likeable” isn't something the actor concerns himself with; ensuring that his performances are honest and authentic takes precedence. “I know I don't think about playing a good guy or a bad guy,” he says. “But someone who's going through tough times...well, I dig roles like that. The way Daniel James acts in this situation, well, it's not what I would do. But I respect the way he makes his decisions, the strength of character behind it. People can make huge mistakes but if they can find a way back from that, it's something I respect very much and something I really like playing.”

In discussing his work in Snitch and his intriguing slate of upcoming projects, Bernthal is an engaging mix of enthusiastic and grateful – he refers to his collaborators as 'Mr Scorsese' (he's appearing alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in the director's The Wolf of Wall Street) and 'Mr De Niro' (he's playing the actor's son in the boxing comedy-drama Grudge Match). And while Snitch's Waugh may not be as A-list, Bernthal was equally excited to work with him.

“Ric is a real-deal guy and I wanted to work with him, especially on something like this, which is an action ride but also very character-based,” he says. “At its core it's about a father and the lengths he'll go to for his son. It's a movie with a real social conscience. It's based on a true story, which gives us a certain amount of street cred, and it also really goes into a close examination of all of these characters. Getting to play this guy with this chequered past but now wants nothing more to provide a good life for his family, for his son, but has to make some really hard decisions in order to do that, well, that was a real thrill for me.”

And he hopes that beyond providing punters with a thrilling action movie, Snitch starts a few conversations about the issues it raises. “I think any time when you have a situation where drug offenders are serving more time in prison than rapists and murderers, we really need to look at ourselves and ask what's going on,” he says. “When it comes to a mandate law that is unflinching and unbending, that doesn't work on a case-by-case basis and that puts people in situations like the one that starts this movie, that compels people to snitch on one another and create this complex web and danger and lies, I'm really hoping people will at least start talking about what's happening. Ratting someone out to get someone off...for every time that it works, there's gonna be another time when the system just crumbles.”

Snitch is in cinemas now.