Dallas Buyers Club (2013)

If you don't want to read it all:
Score: 5/10
Verdict: Worth watching for Matthew McConaughey's talent.


After watching McConaughey's performance in True Detective I just HAD to see this movie and these are my thoughts of it. In short: it's an okay movie with a brilliant actor in the main role. The longer version follows:

Dallas Buyers Club is one of those movies that tell a story of a one-man army fighting the evil and greedy government. A couple of times I even had a feeling I was watching a light version of The People vs. Larry Flint, one of my favorite movies of all time. Now when I think about it, there is a weird coincidence since Woody Harrelson, McConaughey's partner from True Detective, is the main actor in that movie. Weird indeed!

Anyway, Dallas Buyers Club is about Ron Woodruff, a simple electrician from Dallas who learns that he has HIV and AIDS. All this is happening in 1985 when not much was known about HIV, especially among "the simple folk" who alienized anyone suffering from the disease. Ron was told he has no more than 30 days left to live, but he soon finds out about drugs that could help him, drugs that were not on the approved list by the US government. So his struggle for life and fight against the authorities begins.

Again, McConaughey is simply brilliant in this piece. He does an amazing job in portraying a dying man that refuses to give up and is ready to fight til the very end. Another pleasant surprise is Jared Leto's transsexual character Rayon - I couldn't believe HE was Jared! He lost so much weight and looked so strange... simply amazing. The next big name is Jennifer Garner but to be honest - her role was too small and almost unimportant. And that is what is wrong with this movie - it's all too much about Ron that all other characters are absolutely marginal. The story is okay, the acting is phenomenal, but there's that little something that's missing to make DBC an outstanding movie.

At the end of the movie I wasn't moved nor sad, as someone might expect to be. It just ended and I turned the channel to watch a football match, completely forgetting about it, up until this morning when I decided to review it. It's worth watching for Matthew's acting and that's about it.