Director: Yann Demange
Distributor: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Duration: 111 minutes
White Boy Rick (Blu-ray) – Movie Review
Movies based on a true story aren’t always the most exciting movies and they often draw a certain audience. This time we’re thrown into White Boy Rick, which is also based on a true story, but it involves drugs, family drama and a decent amount of action. We were quite intrigued with the trailer of White Boy Rick, and by the end of the movie we simply wanted more.
White Boy Rick throws us in an 80s Detroit, which is ravaged by drug dealers and violence. We follow the Wershe family, where Richard (Matthew McConaughey) is a white trash arms dealer, trying to support his son Rick Jr. (Richie Merritt) and daughter Dawn (Bel Powley), who is sadly addicted to drugs. The movie shows us a dysfunctional family, where the father has his run-in with the law, Dawn is leaving home because of her father and Rick isn’t doing much with his life. When the FBI tries to involve Rick into their plans, Rick starts dealing drugs for the bureau in order to expose other players on the market. Of course this is a very tricky plan, and it’s clear that something shady is going on in the FBI’s plan.
Movies based on a true story often get tedious halfway through, or are so loaded with facts and data they become increasingly heavy, sometimes making them a chore to watch. White Boy Rick’s pacing feels perfect from start to finish, with enough information to process what is going on, but also a sufficient amount of lighter scenes to keep the entire movie very watchable and pleasant to a certain extent. Even though the topic is rather heavy, the movie feels light and very appealing to people that normally don’t like this sort of movie. We can easily say that the pacing and flow have been handled with care, making sure that every emotion properly comes across, without becoming a nagging ordeal.
White Boy Rick has a variety of cast members, many of them only having a limited screen time. The main characters find themselves in the Wershe family and they are portrayed by Matthew McConaughey, Richie Merritt and Bel Powley. Richie plays Rick Wershe Jr., who is pretty much the grand star of the movie. This fairly unknown cast member does a superb job in portraying a realistic version of the actual Rick Wershe Jr. and has us sympathizing with him throughout the movie. Even McConaughey’s character might be a simply white trash arms dealer, we still feel for him and his family as he’s simply aiming for a better life to support his children. Bel Powley plays Dawn Wershe, the drug addicted daughter and, even though her story arc is a subplot, she shows a lot of character evolution throughout the length of the movie.
There’s about a half hour of extra content, if you don’t count the trivia track as a real extra. The trivia track is basically the movie with some factual data and information smudged all over the screen during the actual viewing of the movie. Other than that, there are some facts and testimonies from the real Rick Wershe Jr., deleted scenes, a short making of feature and a snippet about the cast of the movie. The most interesting part is probably having the real Rick talk about some facts and how the movie came to life.
Conclusion
White Boy Rick is one of those movies that doesn’t immediately ring a bell when it creeps up on you, but we were intrigued from start to finish. The movie has a great (true) story, superb acting performances and a certain atmosphere that completes the entire package. We learned more about the life of a young drug dealer in Detroit who was recruited by the police and then left to fend for himself. If you’re looking for a story based on facts, but also love some action and dark comedy, then this movie is certainly worth the watch.
White Boy Rick (Blu-ray) - Movie Review,
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