'Dallas Buyers Club' Review

by Taylor Higgins

 

Alright, alright, alright.

All manner of cinematic sins and transgression in Matthew McConaughey’s past have been washed away with the win of his first Oscar for the film “Dallas Buyers Club.”

Matthew McConaughey plays Ron Woodroof in
the biographical film.
Photo credit: Anne Marie Fox / Focus Features

In a recent career shift, McConaughey has aggressively attempted to take on more dynamic, timeless roles, all culminating in his “Best Actor”win at the 2014 Academy Awards. (Clink link to hear his memorable acceptance speech)

McConaughey portrays the late Ron Woodroof, a rodeo-going, homophobic “Marlboro man” living in Dallas in the height of the Aids epidemic (1985), an era many of McConaughey’s fans are unfamiliar with, when AIDS was commonly associated only with homosexual activity.

When viewers meet McConaughey, he is already unknowingly sick. A drinking, smoking, cussing, gambling “good ol’ boy” from Texas, Woodroof likes snorting cocaine and having sex with groupies in the bull pen before rodeos. An accident at work as an electrician leads Woodroof to the emergency room, where he is informed he only has 30 days to live.

After a term of denial fueled by homophobia, Ron discovers that the drug doctors at Dallas Mercy Hospital are administering is causing toxic harm, and he grabs the bull by the horns to find a treatment that the lazy FDA refuses to look into.

The lack of initiative and slow drug testing of medical providers incite in Ron a “stick it to the man” attitude. Ron gives the finger to complacent doctors, money grubbing big pharmaceuticals, and the pocket-lining FDA by traveling the globe to obtain foreign drug treatments on the black market.

McConaughey and Leto both won Oscars for their
performances in Dallas Buyer's CLub.
Photo credit: thestranger.com

Wihle in the hospital, Ron meets a transgender woman Rayon (Jared Leto), who serves as a connection to potential club members. With his drugs and his research, Ron starts a “buyers club” out of Rayon’s apartment, where infected people pay a membership fee and receive the treatment drugs for free.

Not the typical character of inspiration, Ron is never presented as a “good guy.” After all, it’s not the Dallas Givers Club. There is no self-pity to be seen, and Ron is not a straight homophobe who valiantly rides to rescue of the gays for the sake of goodwill alone.

“What I enjoy about an anti-hero is you don't have to abide by society's laws”, McConaughey said in an interview with Contact Music. “Actually, they're outside the law. He's a guy who I think shook the tree enough to where it's possible that the FDA approves certain drugs that have worked for HIV sooner than maybe they would've.”

Director Jean-Marc Vallee delivers inspiration in the most unconventional ways – by being unwilling to overplay sentimentality with inspirational music, monologues, or drawn-out stares between characters.

Instead, he lets the raw emotional moments of young people dying with a horrific disease speak for themselves. In this, viewers find a reflection of reality, where heartbreaking moments are rarely followed by an orchestral piece or still frame – most of the time, people just die, and things are left unsaid.

Jared Leto, who plays a transgender HIV patient,
lost 40 pounds for the film.
Photo Credit: CNN

To me, it’s the life lesson behind it.  I mean, when you’re told you’ve got 30 days to live, what do you do with them?  “Oh yeah?  There’s nothing out there that can kill me in 30 days.  You watch me.”  The guy has no education.  He becomes his own teacher, expert and lab rat.  He had some balls.  He was a crazy cowboy who wanted to live.
Read more at http://collider.com/jean-marc-vallee-dallas-buyers-club-interview/#DC0ZxSuyW6EH8U4c.99

"To me, it's the life lesson behind it," Vallee said in an interview with the Collider. "When you're told you've got 30 days to live, what do you do with them? 'You're not gonna tell me how I'm gonna die... I'm gonna live.' He was a crazy cowboy who wanted to live."

To me, it’s the life lesson behind it.  I mean, when you’re told you’ve got 30 days to live, what do you do with them?  “Oh yeah?  There’s nothing out there that can kill me in 30 days.  You watch me.”  The guy has no education.  He becomes his own teacher, expert and lab rat.  He had some balls.  He was a crazy cowboy who wanted to live.
Read more at http://collider.com/jean-marc-vallee-dallas-buyers-club-interview/#DC0ZxSuyW6EH8U4c.99

To me, it’s the life lesson behind it.  I mean, when you’re told you’ve got 30 days to live, what do you do with them?  “Oh yeah?  There’s nothing out there that can kill me in 30 days.  You watch me.”  The guy has no education.  He becomes his own teacher, expert and lab rat.  He had some balls.  He was a crazy cowboy who wanted to live.
Read more at http://collider.com/jean-marc-vallee-dallas-buyers-club-interview/#DC0ZxSuyW6EH8U4c.99

To me, it’s the life lesson behind it.  I mean, when you’re told you’ve got 30 days to live, what do you do with them?  “Oh yeah?  There’s nothing out there that can kill me in 30 days.  You watch me.”  The guy has no education.  He becomes his own teacher, expert and lab rat.  He had some balls.  He was a crazy cowboy who wanted to live.
Read more at http://collider.com/jean-marc-vallee-dallas-buyers-club-interview/#DC0ZxSuyW6EH8U4c.99

To me, it’s the life lesson behind it.  I mean, when you’re told you’ve got 30 days to live, what do you do with them?  “Oh yeah?  There’s nothing out there that can kill me in 30 days.  You watch me.”  The guy has no education.  He becomes his own teacher, expert and lab rat.  He had some balls.  He was a crazy cowboy who wanted to live.
Read more at http://collider.com/jean-marc-vallee-dallas-buyers-club-interview/#DC0ZxSuyW6EH8U4c.99

Ron never delivers a monologue to say why he has embarked on a journey to help thousands of terminally ill homosexuals. He never addresses why he doesn’t just use the life-saving drugs he obtains for himself, even when he faces shortages. Never do we get an explanation for why he devotes his limited existence to medical research.

Even in the face of an IRS audit, and FDA raid and a death sentence, never does Ron let his exterior crack or lie down and die gracefully.

“I prefer to die with my boots on,” Woodroof exclaims as he marches out of the hospital with nothing on but a gown and his cowboy hat.

But there is an unbelievable beauty in that tenacity. Come hell or high water, Ron Woodroof is Ron Woodroof -- sometimes guns-a-blazing, sometimes wordless character transformation.

Although not outright addressed in the film, "Dallas Buyer's Club" also touches on the topic of abstinence. After receiving his diagnosis, Woodroof, a sex addict, does not have sex again except once, with a woman who already has "full-blown AIDS." His relationship with Dr. Eve Saks, Jennifer Garner, is portrayed as completely platonic.

By the end of the film. Woodroof is a homophobe turned activist. Ron’s reaction to the death of Rayon, his friend and business partner, is an unbelievable representation of the love, tolerance and compassion that is at the heart of humanity.

“I read the script and immediately I was just blown away,” Jared Leto said in the same interview with Contact Music. “I fell in love with the character and I felt that this was a real opportunity here to portray a real person, not a cliché or a stereotype. It’s Texas, it's 1985, you've got this cowboy and this young man who's chosen to live as a woman. A really brave choice; I couldn't imagine how terrifying it must've been to walk through a grocery store at that time,”  

The biographical drama has received much praise since its November 2013 release, including the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor. Jared Leto also received the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

McConaughey also suffered dramatic weight
loss for the film.
Photo Credit: Gossip on This

WHAT: Dallas Buyers Club

RELEASE: Out on DVD and Blu-Ray

WHERE: Available for rent at RedBox for $1.20 (DVD) and $1.80 (BluRay)

Available for purchase at Wal-Mart $22.93