{"id":3504,"date":"2018-09-16T19:04:34","date_gmt":"2018-09-16T19:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bryanbuser.com\/365moviesbyday\/?p=3504"},"modified":"2024-06-06T15:54:27","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T15:54:27","slug":"white-boy-rick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/365moviesbyday.bryanbuser.com\/white-boy-rick\/","title":{"rendered":"White Boy Rick (2018)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"White Boy Rick<\/em>, the most hyped movie of\u00a0September 2018, Yann Demange (’71<\/em>), is one of the most disappointing movies of the year. The narrative could be better. The character development is almost non-existent. Matthew McConaughey (Mud<\/a>,\u00a0Free State of Jones<\/a><\/em>) seemed as interested in attempting to earn a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination as he was trying to advance the story (I don’t blame him, as much as I do the script and the director). Newcomer Richie Merritt, who stars as the story’s lead, does his job, but the story is so askew that it leaves the audience not caring about what happens to him. The movie tries to make you feel sympathetic for its lead, but it just doesn’t work. It’s not Merritt’s fault. It wouldn’t have worked with anybody with Demange as the director. Not even the super-talented McConaughey could rescue this movie from mediocrity.
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Let’s start with the good. The cinematography was excellent. Set in 1980s Detroit, the feel of this film is dirty and gritty. The suburb that the Wershes lived in was rundown. I don’t think there was a single day where the weather would have made any envious. People in the neighborhoods spent time finding trouble because there wasn’t much else to do. Drugs were rampant during the time of Ronald Reagan’s “Say No to Drugs” campaign. The story follows that of Richard Wershe, Jr. (aka White Boy Rick), who, at 14, became the youngest FBI informant in the organization’s history. In addition to the not-so-beautiful landscape of the ’80s Detroit, the other great thing about this movie was that it seemed to follow what happened accurately. There were many components of this story (some seemingly unbelievable but true) that this movie didn’t even mention. I appreciate Demange keeping this movie under two hours (barely). If this movie had dragged on for another thirty minutes, I don’t know if I could have stood it. There just was a little advancement. Even though the movie spanned some seven or eight years, the\u00a0characters remained static. Seven years is a long time, but it felt like the characters we initially met were the same characters we saw near the end.<\/p>\n

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McConaughey plays Richard, White Boy Rick’s father. At first, the movie will be about him. A quick-talking hustler with a dream of opening a chain of video stores, we first meet Rick buying guns at a gun show, modifying them in his basement, and then selling them on the black market in his neighborhood, often out of his own home, often in front of his impressionable son. His daughter Dawn (Bel Powley –\u00a0The Diary of a Teenage Girl,\u00a0Mary Shelley<\/em>) is strung out on drugs for much of the movie, running away to live with her small crime boyfriend early on. The change in her character (both physically and emotionally) was the best example of character development in this film. White Boy Rick’s mother was also walking out on the family. To say that Rick was doomed to a harsh life is an understatement.<\/p>\n

Rick gets caught up with Detroit’s east side drug scene at 14. In a primarily criminal underworld populated by black men, the young Rick often stands out like a sore thumb. Still, he earns the trust of the area run by twin brothers, the loud and flashy Leo ‘Big Man’ Curry (YG) and the businessman Johnny ‘Lil Man’ Curry\u00a0(Jonathan Majors), after befriending their younger brother Boo (R.J. Cyler<\/span>\u00a0–\u00a0War Machine<\/em>), who was Rick’s age. The more Rick hung out with Boo, the more meetings that there were with his older brothers. The more time he spent with them, the more Rick wanted to live their lavish lifestyles. So he started working for the brothers before eventually getting greedy and cutting out the intermediaries entirely.<\/p>\n

He is broached by FBI agents Byrd (Rory Cochrane –\u00a0Black Mass<\/a>, Bringing Up Bobby<\/em>) and Snyder (Jennifer Jason Leigh –\u00a0Rush, Single White Female<\/em>) and Officer Jackson (Brian Tyree Henry –\u00a0Hotel Artemis, Widows<\/em>) to be an undercover informant, promising him that in exchange for information that can help lead to arrests, he can help keep his father out of jail for illegally selling (and manufacturing guns by adding silencers), including one that recently killed a man. In addition, Rick receives cocaine to sell on the streets, not to draw suspicion as merely a buyer. He is also allowed to keep whatever money he earns from the sales. It’s enough for Rick’s eyes to widen, and soon, he is deeply entrenched in the Detroit drug scene. But since he was a minor, all of this had to be kept unofficially. There was no record of White Boy Rick as an FBI informant.<\/p>\n

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Of course, problems arose while Rick worked for the FBI and after his days as an informant were over. His lust for the luxurious lifestyle he was accustomed to was something he didn’t want to give up. Much like his dad, his drive for money trumped common sense. And he puts himself in numerous dangerous situations. So was White Boy Rick a tragic hero, a man who did what he was doing during a time when the war on drugs was more intense n this country than it was at any other point in history. Rick was never violent and was treated by the courts in Michigan as if he was a mass murderer under the unmerciful 1978 law known as the 650-Lifer law, which mandated life in prison without parole for being caught with more than six hundred and fifty grams of cocaine or heroin.<\/p>\n

The film fails to engage the audience or have them care about what happens to its characters. I can see why there was so much hype surrounding\u00a0White Boy Rick<\/em>\u00a0before it was released. This is one of those films that hope to recoup as much of its budget in its first couple of weeks before word of mouth convinces those who haven’t seen it to either wait for it to come to DVD\/streaming or abandon a viewing. Its biggest problem is that you don’t care about any of the characters or what happens to them. There is a 2017 documentary called\u00a0White Bo<\/em>y<\/a>. That might be the best route if you’re interested in the story.<\/p>\n

Plot 7\/10
\nCharacter Development 5\/10
\nCharacter Chemistry 5.5\/10
\nActing 7.5\/10
\nScreenplay 6.5\/10
\nDirecting 6\/10
\nCinematography 10\/10
\nSound 8\/10
\nHook and Reel 6\/10
\nUniversal Relevance 7\/10
\n68.5%<\/p>\n

D<\/p>\n

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