White Boy Rick

Directed by: Yann Demange
Written by: Andy Weiss, Noah Miller, Logan Miller
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Richie Merritt, Bel Powley, Bruce Dern, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Rory Cochrane, Brian Tyree Henry, RJ Cyler, Jonathan Majors, Eddie Marsan

What were you doing when you were 14 years old? I was in school trying my best to learn stuff. On the other hand, Detroit resident Rick Wershe Jr., was a school dropout, already a street hustler, an FBI informant, and well on his way to becoming a drug kingpin. Now that’s youthful ambition, even if it’s totally misdirected.

After a year of endless super heroes, action adventures, and really dumb comedies, here is an interesting drama based on a true story that’s both compelling and believably plausible. Like me, you probably have never heard of Rick, unless you read Atavist magazine, which published a long article about him in 2014 entitled “The Trials of White Boy Rick”, and brought his case into the public eye.

It’s hard to believe that a simple story of a blue-collar father and his teen-aged son could veer so far off course, but it did happen, and in painful and dynamic ways.

Here’s The Storyline…

Rick Wershe Sr. (McConaughey) is a man struggling to raise his teenage son Rick Jr. (Merritt) and daughter Dawn (Powley) at the height of the crack epidemic in 1980s Detroit. He is barely eking out a living by hustling guns on the street. The FBI has been watching both he and his son make a few sales to the African-American gang running the drug trade. In return for keeping his dad out of jail, Rick Jr. agrees to turn informant against his new friends. This leads to his seduction by the easy money that’s made by pushing drugs, which his FBI handlers have taught him to do, and eventually leads to his downfall.

This is definitely McConaughey’s best role since The Dallas Buyers Club. However, his performance is so close to the character he played in that film, I couldn’t tell where one character ended and the other began. The real star of the movie though is newcomer Merritt as Rick Jr., who made the most of a challenging role that required him to carry his emotions expressionlessly throughout the film, while still managing to convey his feelings at every turn.

Director Yann Demange did a masterful job utilizing great locations and bad weather as important elements in building an engrossing and very believable story. Kudos also go to Cinematographer Tat Radcliffe whose use of lenses and movement brought you right into the film’s world in a very tangible way.

My take… I liked the film. It’s different, yet familiar and will keep your interest throughout. If you like good streetwise drama, you’ll like this one.