Dallas Buyers Club begins in late July 1985, right after Hollywood actor Rock Hudson became one of the first celebrities to go public with having AIDS, which at that time was viewed only as a “gay disease.” Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey) is a Texas electrician by day and hard-partying heterosexual rodeo playboy by night, but his once-muscular appearance has since whittled away to a rail-thin frame (McConaughey lost fifty pounds for the role). He also suffers from a persistent cough and blackouts. When he is taken to the hospital after a work accident, blood work reveals that he has HIV. His doctors, Dr. Sevard (Denis O’Hare) and Dr. Eve Saks (Jennifer Garner) tell him that he has a month to live, but he quickly becomes resolved to do whatever it takes to keep himself alive.
Though Woodroof approaches Dr. Saks about an FDA approved drug named AZT that is being tested on patients, the time frame for the tests are beyond Woodroof’s remaining estimated lifespan. Even worse, because it is being tested it’s possible that he would just be given a placebo instead of the actual drug. He becomes a pariah among his old friends (who are convinced that he contracted HIV from gay sex, something which the film does not confirm nor deny), leaving him to go to to Mexico to seek AZT. There he meets Dr. Vaas (Griffin Dunne), an American doctor who lost his license who has a better idea of what Woodroof needs to survive even though he now has AIDS.
Three months later, Woodroof is still breathing and looks a bit healthier thanks to Dr. Vaas’ non-FDA approved drugs. He then gets an idea: he will buy large quantities of these drugs by any means possible and sell them on the black market. Thanks to a cross-dresser named Rayon (Jared Leto) who also has HIV and connects him to the gay community, Woodroof’s Dallas Buyers Club is not only wildly successful financially but is keeping dozens of people suffering from HIV and AIDS alive. As time goes on, Eve begins to realize that Woodroof’s methods, though technically illegal, are working, but the FDA — led by agent Richard Barkley (Michael O’Neill) — sees Woodroof’s operation as a danger to public health and undermining the agency’s authority. Meanwhile, despite all of this Woodroof is still doing the one thing he set out to do: live.
There’s no other way to put this: in Dallas Buyers Club Matthew McConaughey continues to prove that he is a far better actor than anyone gave him credit for even two years ago. His gaunt appearance, particularly in the Mexican hospital scene, is riveting. Leto is also impressive as Rayon, and considering I’ve never really thought much of Leto as an actor (I’ve always thought he was an average actor that was constantly lucky in his role choices because he’s in some extraordinary films), but I was completely on board with his portrayal of Rayon, which is almost as transformative as McConaughey’s performance. Garner is kind of just there in her role and does well with it, but it’s hard for her to match McConaughey and Leto when the biggest leap Garner takes is not wearing makeup.
In a lot of ways though, Dallas Buyers Club follows the general style of “drug kingpin” crime movies, which is both appropriate and disappointing. Of course, Woodroof is a drug pusher, but circumstances do twist the film in another direction. I was surprised to see Jean-Marc Vallée‘s name attached to the film as director because his past work, while impressive, really doesn’t reflect the type of biopic/drama that Dallas Buyers Club is. I almost feel like he plays it safe by trying to make a Ron Howard middle-of-the-road movie rather than trying to take this film in a more controversial direction. That’s not an insult to Ron Howard — he generally makes great films — but the film is missing a unique “stamp” that would set it apart from a storytelling perspective. Rather than controversial, Vallée goes for crowd-pleasing.
Of course, while it’s obvious that the FDA is the “villain” here, my concern with the film is that it will give voice to the idea that “alternative treatments” for deadly diseases always work. While Woodroof was able to prolong his life with unapproved medication, it’s important to note (and I don’t think that the film highlights this enough) that the medication Woodroof peddles wasn’t “herbal remedies” but actual vitamin cocktails and drugs that had not yet been approved by the FDA but had been available in other countries (many of the medications would, in fact, go on to become FDA approved). In cases with other diseases, “alternative medicine” follows the old joke: “If alternative medicine worked, it would just be called ‘medicine'” (such as Steve Jobs, who admitted shortly before his death that he regretted trying “alternative medicine” to cure his pancreatic cancer). The reason I bring that up is Woodroof didn’t take just any pill he could to survive, he conducted enough research to put medical professionals and the government to shame and became an activist and expert when it came to HIV/AIDS medication. That to me is the real story here, but I think it gets clouded behind Hollywood sentimentality.
So while I think Dallas Buyers Club features two excellent performance, it isn’t as hard-hitting as I think it should be — especially once one starts looking into the horrid history of the AIDS crisis. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a really good movie and is yet another home run for McConaughey in a series of them. His last home runs — Killer Joe and Mud — flew a bit further and higher to me. But a home run that just makes it over the fence still clears the bases.
Rating: A moving drama with two Oscar-worthy performances that could have used a dash of more controversy to fuel its message (8/10).
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