Dallas Buyers Club

Matthew McConaughey has arrived. Finally. 16 years after he first made an impression as a younger version of Paul Newman in A Time To Kill, Matt can now lay claim to being  a bona fide film star who can also act. And he is in with a very good chance of securing an Oscar nomination in the near future.

He plays Ron Woodroof, a rodeo rider and general low life in 1985. He drinks too much, screws everything that moves, and thinks he’s the bees’ knees. Which is why he is not only astonished but infuriated when he is told that he has AIDS, an illness which from his point of view is exclusively reserved for gay men (he uses less flattering terminology, being a rampant homophobe). 

When he is told that he has only a few months to live, and also discovers that the current US drug treatment is grossly inadequate, he takes matters into his own hands. That involves driving down Mexico way, where there is a wider variety of drugs available, working out which treatments work best, then heading back north again with a boot full of said drugs to sell them to an eager line of desperate clients. Except none of the gay community will do business with such a bigoted redneck. So he has to go into business with Rayon (Jared Leto), a gay guy who dresses like a woman. His other ally is Jennifer Garner playing a sympathetic doctor who shares his concerns about AIDS treatment but is hamstrung by her hospital.

7/10

Phil Raby

Front Row Films

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