Dallas Buyers Club (2013)

“Let me give y'all a little news flash. There ain't nothin' out there can kill fuckin' Ron Woodroof in 30 days”

            Dallas Buyers Club, to me, is a story about not giving up and doing whatever your conviction and determination tells you to do no matter how wrong it may be. One man’s determination and conviction helps many people sick or healthy.

            Ron Woodruff (Matthew McConaughey) lives a fast and hard life. He spends his time at a rodeo watch bull riders. Outside the rodeo Ron parties with drinking, drugs, and having sex with random women. One day at work Ron collapses. He wakes in the hospital where he is told by two doctors, one of them a pretty female doctor named Eve Sax (Jennifer Garner), that his blood tests came back positive for Aids. Ron is furious because at that time in the 1980s it was widely thought that Aids only ever really happened in homosexuals and bisexuals.

            Ron finds out about an experimental drug called AZT for Aids. He cannot get into the drug trial so he bribes someone to put a few pills in the garbage for him to take. That only works for so long until he passes out again and Eve and the other doctor find the drug in his blood. Ron finds out that AZT is toxic that several people have become sicker and that the side effects are more lethal than the Aids. He begins to research drugs that other countries are producing to combat the disease and travels to those countries to get their drugs to bring them back to Texas and sell them. He meets Rayon (Jared Leto) a transsexual who he does not really care for at first but then makes him his business partner.

            Buyers clubs appear all over the country where drugs for Aids are sold. Ron starts one with Rayon. The FDA does everything they can to shut him down because they are afraid that patients are going to go to natural cures and drugs rather than the big AZT. He and Rayon have become friends with Eve and ask for her help. She is reluctant but as she sees the good Ron is doing and all his research she helps him in her own ways.

            Ron was only supposed to live for thirty days. He lived for seven years and helped many.

            The casting was good. I say good because of Matthew McConaughey. I really did not find him that great. I do not think his performance in this movie was Oscar worthy at all. Any other actor could have done the same thing and would probably have done better and not have been nominated. His performance was not stand out at all it was just different from what we normally see him in and that is it. Now Jared Leto, on the other hand, was amazing. The man absolutely deserved his nomination and win. He stole the movie in my opinion. You can tell he just became the character and was completely dedicated to it. Hopefully this will lead to great roles for Leto I would absolutely see him more movies. Now I must confess the only reason I really wanted to see this movie was for Jennifer Garner. She is my idol and has been ever since she played Sydney Bristow on the TV show Alias. Her acting gets better and better the more she is in. Her character card for both Ron and Rayon and really wanted to help them. Eve was the only one who listened to what Ron had to say. You can feel her emotions in this movie. You can see her concern and care on her face. Of course this is McConaughey and Leto’s movie but I wish Garner got a bit more attention even if her part was small. Oh and the highlight of this movie for me was when Garner dropped the F-bomb, loved it! I find it funny that Garner and McConaughey were in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, a chick flick, together five years ago.  

            Dallas Buyers Club was a decent movie. Nothing about it stood out to me to make it so talked about. The story felt like it had been done before even though it really has not. One thing I will say about Dallas Buyers Club is that you can see the care and the dedication that went into making this story. All the actors, including McConaughey, put all they had into their characters to tell their stories. The direction I thought was very good because it was subtle it was very focused on the characters. I do, also, like how Ron was so determined to help not only himself but others like him. Dallas Buyers Club is worth seeing at least once.