Dallas Buyer's Club

After being so good in Mud, Matthew McConaughey has really outdone himself, and should be in the running for an Oscar if there's any fairness in the movie world. In DBC, McConaughey portrays Ron Woodroof, a hard partying, rodeo rider/electrician in 1985 who shockingly finds himself diagnosed with AIDS. Being a homophobic, foul-mouthed, brawling redneck, Woodroof won't accept the death sentence that comes with the diagnosis and sets out to find a better treatment than the only one available at the time, which was nearly as deadly as the disease. After consulting with a hippie-doctor in Mexico, Woodroof sets up a smuggling operation to move experimental drugs into the US under the guise of a buyer's club, which stays outside FDA regulations. Initially given 30 days to live, Woodroof finds himself as a cult item among the people he previously would have hated and lasts much longer than anybody would have expected.

This is basically a one-actor movie. The rest of the cast is OK and does their job, but McConaughey really pulled out all the stops on this role. He spends the entire movie looking absolutely pathetic and does hardly anything likable, but, at the same time, he's a man with a mission, nothing he ever expected to be, spending his life with people he never would have accepted. Eventually he gets a lot back from the people he helps and admits that it's not just about making money from the drugs he's selling. It's hard to think that McConaughey didn't completely immerse himself in the role; he completely becomes the character. This is a real tour-de-force, well worth seeing, in spite of the overall sadness of the story.

In addition to the above, there's a lot of casual subversion going here just below the surface. Notice how the big Pharma company recycles a mothballed cancer drug that was unmarketable (re: it killed everyone) but they strike a gold mine with the AIDS epidemic; with a 100% fatality rate, who's going to nitpick that their product also has a 100% fatality rate? Their marketing departments miraculously turn a complete lemon into very expensive lemonade.

Got to mention Yves Bélanger as the cinematographer (some of the images above illustrate this) each shot in the film seemed to have a single (roving) center of interest and the rest was out of focus, which I found really interesting. I had to wait for the end credits to find out who that actor playing the ex-pat doctor down in Mexico was. So I got to mention Griffin Dunne, who was totally unrecognizable, but I kept thinking during his scenes, where the hell have I see that guy before?

Both actors lost 40 pounds each for the film, but the tie goes to Jared for having the slightly smaller BMI. Rather than McConaughey (although I'll agree he's making some interesting choices for his film projects lately) I think Jared as the better actor here, he does all the heavy lifting, allowing his transformation from red neck trailer trash to decent human being to be appreciated by the audience. Yes! The butterflies, certainly one of the most gorgeous scenes in a movie for the year 1213.

Thoughts on the film

-McConaughey completely owned this role and should be a major player come awards time.
-Leto was absolutely fantastic as well. He should win supporting actor Oscar IMO.
-Surprisingly alot of funny parts to this movie for such a sad story. Steams from a homophobia that has to get to know the very people he hates/fear.
-Interesting story that I didn't know much about
-Always have been cynical about healthcare making money off the sick, this movie definitely portrays that.
-Only thing that hurts it to me a tad bit is it sometimes has scenes that seem to be more helpful for an agenda then the plot itself. Takes a little of the emotional punch out. Still enough there to get the heart strings thou.

I'd give this a solid 4 out of 5. I loved it.

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I came here to do two things, drink some beer and kick some ass, looks like we are almost outta beer - Dazed and Confused

101 Favorite Movies (2019)

Fantastic film, I loved it. McConaughey's performance is outstanding, as was Jared Leto's.

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Great movie. My second favorite of 2013 that I've seen so far. I definitely hope that McConaughey at least gets an Oscar nomination for the role, Jared Leto too. Both gave fantastic performances.

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I really hope he'll win if he gets a nomination.Probably the best performance of the year so far. I still need to see a few films, but someone's acting will really,really have to impress me to surpass McConaughey's.

Well I'm still holding out hope for Joaquin Phoenix to finally get an Oscar and if he gets nominated I'll be rooting for him, of course. But if McConaughey takes it I won't be too disappointed.

You should try All Is Lost, not seen it myself, but Redford is supposed to be superb.

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I probably will check it out some time. It's crazy how many good films I still need to check out, this is the best year for cinema since 2007 in my opinion. If 2014 can be 1/4th as good as this year than I'd be very impressed.

Nobody's gonna get an Oscar for falling in love with a computer.

Really enjoyed reading your review. I don't think McConaughey has given an award-worthy performance since A TIME TO KILL and I'm thrilled by the Oscar buzz that this performance has been getting and I can't wait to see the movie.

Okay, so here we go. I liked this movie, yes, but once again its one that I don't think was great, I think the easiest way to do this would be to do pros and cons.

Matthew McConaughey does gives a good performance, I wasn't blown away by it though, he loses weight and acts like a scumbag, not much emotion/skill required as some make out.

Jared Leto also gives a good performance, but what is a concern is that this is a fictional character, created purely to dramatise the situation and make it as Hollywood as possible, not only does he act as the character that helps transform Ron into the 'good guy', but he also acts as the needed character for the scene:



It feels like everything is exaggerated because it is a movie, Ron is a hero, the hospital are the bad guys. When in fact AZT because an important drug against AIDS as stated in the end credits, and I also read online that it was not as bad as the movie depicts and actually did help.

Whilst in terms of dealing with moral and legal problems, interesting points are raised about not just AIDS but the healthcare system in general. Unfortunately certain overblown parts ruin this again, we have the FDA (or whoever he is) guy telling him he will ruin his business or something like that, countered by Ron helping some police officer by giving his father drugs that will help is Alzheimer's.

It just at times felt all too forced and extreme, we have a character introduced to turn Ron from bad to good and then he is everybody's hero who saves everyone from the evil hospitals. I think that the Ron Woodroof character didn't really portray much to evoke an emotional reaction from myself as a viewer, it was an interesting, and at times uplifting story, but never that powerful/compelling.

So yeh, good performances and some good scenes, I liked the overall feel aided by the cinematography which was interesting, the editing was hit and miss, some places it worked, some places it didn't. I just didn't really like the writing and how one-dimensional and clichéd these characters and their arcs were.

To me, I don't look at Dallas Buyers Club and think about all of the details such as the truth behind the story, the facts about AZT, the fact that Rayon wasn't even real (she was made up for the movie, as Daniel said), etc. etc.

I like it because it deals with a dark subject (death, dying from AIDS) and gives us heroes who are trying to fight against it and survive. It gave us interesting heroes, at least to me. And I've never really seen such a take on AIDS like this. I still haven't bothered to watch Philadelphia, but from what I know about it, I don't believe it really deals much with the fact that Tom Hanks is doing everything to save his life -- just his career and his dignity, I think. Dallas Buyers Club is unique because it showed people who just wanna live, and who went against the grain to try to live. These characters had a horrible, horrible fate awaiting them, and they kept it away from them for awhile. I think that Ron Woodroof really did prolong his life and did that because he didn't listen to the doctors. Even if he only lived a few more years, that's still better than thirty days (which is what he's told in the movie -- I heard in real life, he was told six months).

Sure, they could make a better AIDS movie somehow, but this one managed to be, I thought, entertaining, spirited, even funny and joyous. I think it took an edge off of the AIDS issue -- a very scary edge -- and gave us something more relaxed. Something more empowering. It was great to see Matthew McConaughey play a character like Ron Woodroof who had AIDS. It wasn't just a sad gay man. And then they gave us a campy transsexual, as well. It's no surprise to me why those actors are doing so well this awards season.

You make some good points Sexy. Like I said I did enjoy the movie despite its flaws and as I mentioned I felt the overall 'feel' worked well, it was upbeat, seemed to move along quickly, and the characters seemed to be having fun.