White Boy Rick (2018)

Starring: Richie Merritt, Matthew McConaughey, Bel Powley, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Brian Tyree Henry, Jonathan Majors, Eddie Marsan, Bruce Dern, Piper Laurie, YG, and Danny Brown
Grade: A-

Seeing Danny Brown getting his ass kicked was worth the viewing alone.

Summary

In Detroit in 1984, we see Rick Wershe Jr. (Merritt) and his father (McConaughey) hanging out at a gun show and outing some seller for selling fake Russian AK-47s. Threatening to get him in trouble, Rick Wershe Sr. buys two of them from the guy for a reduced price, along with an extra handgun to boot. On the way home, as the two talk about Rick’s father’s dream to open up a video store, they find Rick’s sister Dawn (Powley) messing around with her drug dealer back at the house. Rick Sr. walks in with his new AK-47 to get the drug dealer to leave, but Dawn, who’s high as hell at the moment, screams at him and everyone else for barging in. The drug dealer drives off, and he almost hits Grandpa (Dern) and Grandma’s (Laurie) car just as they pull into the neighborhood. Following Dawn yelling at everyone and running back into the house, everyone goes back to what they were doing.

As you can see, this is a pretty normal occurrence at the Wershe household.

After Rick Sr. shows Rick Jr. that he’s making silencers to sell with the AKs, we see Dawn running away from home the next morning. She gives Ricky her number in case he needs it but tells him to not tell their dad. He tries to plead with her not to leave because living with that drug dealer is the worst possible solution to her problems, but she can’t deal with dad anymore. Following this, Ricky goes to the hideout of local gangster Johnny Curry (Majors) to sell the AKs. Curry is very aware of Ricky’s dad and his business of selling firearms, so he’s willing to listen to this 14-year-old white kid. He agrees to buy them from him, and he even takes the silencers too. Johnny has his brother Boo (RJ Cyler) pay the newly christened “White Boy Rick”, and he befriends him, telling Rick to come out some time to the local skating rink. That night, Rick decides to go to the skating rink, and Boo shows him around the place. It’s filled with crooked cops and gangsters. Even the mayor’s daughter Cathy (Taylour Paige) is there, and she’s dating Johnny Curry himself. Little does Rick know, some FBI agents have been watching.

The next morning, the FBI agents are in the house, and they’re questioning Rick Sr. about his business dealings, trying to get him to identify certain people. He tells the agents he’s selling guns legally, but Agent Snyder (Leigh) asks if he’s registered the silencers.

This throws him off, especially after they tell him he can do 10 years for this alone.

He changes the subject though, insisting he’s only selling for 2-3 more years because he’s planning on opening his video store. Rick Jr. is spotted by Snyder as he listens in, so she has him come downstairs to join them. She has him look at the pictures to identify people, but Rick Jr. points out two people that have died and nothing else. The agents leave soon after. After Ricky goes to hang with Boo and his friends, he walks home and finds a big stuffed animal in a garbage, so he takes it because he wants to give it to his sister. Before he gets home, the agents pull up next to him and tell him to get in the car. Also in the car is Detroit PD Vice Detective Jackson (Henry). They get Ricky some food and show him a picture of some guy that was shot. They haven’t found the killer yet, but they found the weapon: It’s the one Ricky sold to Johnny Curry on behalf of his father. Realizing his dad is screwed, Ricky agrees to help the agents. Jackson tells him he will participate in the controlled buying of drugs. This way they can determine where the drugs are being sold, and they can get warrants. They agree on Ricky getting paid $300 if he makes five buys. He reluctantly agrees. Following the confiscation of his weapon, he buys a couple of dime bags. Afterwards, the agents drive him home, and he puts his money away in a special hiding place.

Later, Rick Jr. is hanging with Johnny Curry, Boo, and Big Man (YG), and they all find tuxedos to rent for Curry’s wedding. As Boo and Big Man try on some clothes, Curry lets Ricky know he doesn’t want anything to happen to Boo, and Ricky assures him he would never put Boo in a situation to hurt him. Because of the trust between the two, Curry buys him a blue tuxedo to wear for the wedding. Sometime later, on the day of the wedding, Rick Jr. gets ready, and Rick Sr. questions him on where’s it going to be and such (For the record, it’ll be at the mayor’s house). He asks Rick Jr. if he can tag along, but he tells his dad that it’s invite only. You can tell he’s a little heartbroken, but he accepts it. At the wedding, everything goes well. While there, Ricky is introduced to big time drug dealer Art Derrick (Marsan). Later that night, Ricky hangs with Boo and the group. Driving by, they pick up some girls, including Brenda (Kyanna Simone Simpson). They go to a drive-in, and Ricky and Brenda start making out, beginning their tumultuous relationship. The next morning, Agent Jackson tells Ricky the stakes have been raised. Now, he has to start buying and selling drugs, getting a $4,000 stipend to start off. He also has to hide it from his father somehow. So, he starts building his crew and starts cooking up some crack.

Reminder: This is during the height of the crack epidemic. You got to love the 80s.

The now 15-year-old Ricky starts making big money. One day, as Rick Sr. is out selling some guns, he sees Rick Jr. in the car with the agents as they drive by. Because of this, he goes home and searches Ricky’s room, finding his stash of money ($9,782 to be exact). He confronts Ricky when he gets home and flips out on him for working with the agents, but Ricky tells his father he did it for him, so he wouldn’t have to go to jail. After Rick Sr. slaps him, Ricky has Dawn meet up with him at a diner. To get there, he steals Grandpa’s car. At the diner, he pleads with Dawn to come home but before the conversation gets too deep, someone steals Ricky’s grandfather’s car. They both run outside and start shooting at it, but the guy escapes. However, Ricky and Dawn are both immediately arrested. Later, the agents get him out and explain to him all the stuff he was charged with. Thankfully, they set up a deal where all Ricky has to do is go to the court date, and the arresting officer won’t show up, so the case will be thrown out. Dawn was able to walk too because the agents told them the gun was Ricky’s. Eventually, Rick Sr. drives him home and obviously, Grandpa is pissed. After Ricky and Rick Sr. get into an argument over Dawn, Ricky goes to Johnny Curry’s place that night to hangout. Curry and Big Man take him aside and demand to know what he told the police because they’re aware of him getting arrested. Curry knows Ricky is buying from his trap houses and re-selling. He says that if Ricky possesses even a single gram on him, he doesn’t want him anywhere near the place because they don’t want to go to jail. He bars him from going to his drug houses too because the feds are watching.

However, he tells him that if he does want to start moving real weight, Rick can come to him directly.

Now, the rise and fall begins for “White Boy Rick”.

My Thoughts:

Based on a true story, White Boy Rick shows us exactly what we would imagine 1980s Detroit to be.

When a group of kids go out and have fun by shooting a bunch of rats, my first thought was, “Yup, that’s Detroit for you”.

The story of Rick Wershe Jr. is an interesting one to say the least. It’s definitely worthy of a movie. Though Richie Merritt starts in the titular role and does an admirable job in his debut, I’m not ashamed in saying that the supporting cast completely outshines him to make the movie as good as it is. It starts with Matthew McConaughey. The man steals every scene he’s in. Along with having all the best lines, his performance is top notch. It went under the radar due to White Boy Rick‘s underwhelming performance at the box office, but I assure you McConaughey’s role as Rick Wershe Sr. is right up there with some of his best roles in the time period we refer to as “The McConaissance”. If you’re not familiar, this is the period of time in the 2010s where McConaughey reminded everyone of the fact that he’s an Oscar-worthy dramatic actor, as well as being a major movie star. Obviously, Dallas Buyers Club and Interstellar are the first movies that come to mind when referring to this period, but McConaughey in White Boy Rick is another phenomenal addition to this era of his career.

Rick Sr. is a divorced father whose goal is to do right by his kids. It may sound simple and relatively positive, but his motives have yielded mixed results because the way he goes about things. He cusses out his children with no remorse, has no problem telling them how he feels (even telling Dawn in an argument that her mother left because of her too), has made guns a regular part of their lives, and because of his obsession with making enough money as possible to help his kids, he’s lost his relationship with them in different ways. He’s much closer with Rick Jr., with Ricky accompanying him on a lot of his endeavors. However, he cannot get through to Dawn, who’s turned into a drug addict because of his preferential treatment and clear inability to understand his daughter’s plight. It also doesn’t help how notoriously cheap he is. Plus, he’s kind of an idiot, giving us numerous laugh-out loud moments that keep this story rolling and the entertainment value high. Bel Powley is amazing as Dawn too. I don’t want this to sound bad or anything, but she plays a trashy junkie to perfection. Her big eyes, general appearance (that SCREAMS Detroit), and odd delivery when she speaks draws us to her in many ways. Dawn is in every uncomfortable scene in this movie (in a film full of them), but it’s because of how believable she is as this walking trainwreck of a person. She makes the film feel whole, despite her being the “hole” in the Wershe family.

Her scenes bring us into the underground drug scene of Detroit better than Ricky’s do at some points. I was legitimately impressed with how riveting, as well as saddening, the scene in which she was saved from the crack house by her brother and father and later taken home to get clean. As she screams and tries to fight them off, going through horrible withdrawal effects, your eyes are glued to the screen. Any former addict, or anyone that has dealt with someone with these issues, would probably shutter at the realism of these sequences. Seeing the pain in Rick Sr.’s eyes as his poor daughter is falling apart in his arms, with her try to claw her way out and back to the disgusting mattress she calls “home”, and Rick Jr. trying to make sense of his broken life while trying to help his sister who would rather die than go back to her actual home, was another invigorating example of the gripping realism that makes White Boy Rick so distinctive in a lot of ways. It was raw, captivating, and a totally uncompromising portrait of a family trying their best in the worst situation possible. Though the struggle between the three members of this household and how different they are from each other can be painful at times because of scenes like this, it’s what makes this film such a great family drama, on top of how well they represent the crime genre this real-life story is based on.

Now, we understand why they have these problems with each other and are at odds for a lot of the movie. At the same time, when we see them together and happy, we feel at ease because we know the stress this family puts each other through, along with the stress they put us through. When we get those small little family moments where the characters finally get to relax, I legitimately felt happy for them. I wanted the good times to last because of how much I found myself liking this uneven group of people. We know it won’t last, but that false sense of togetherness comes at just the right times, making us realize how much we truly care about the Wershe family. Adding the Brenda pregnancy was a nice surprise (McConaughey’s reaction to it was priceless), and the little boy playing Brenda’s younger brother was very chuckle-worthy. That kid has some serious confidence. I loved it. It all leads to seeing Rick’s child, giving us a very sweet moment where it feels like finally, all is right in the world. Despite it coming at the worst time possible for a kid who’s nowhere near close to being ready for this type of commitment, there’s this calming feeling in the room like this was meant to happen, and it puts us at ease when we shouldn’t be. We know Ricky’s life is still trending downwards, but you know how it is. When you look into a baby’s eyes and hold it for the first time, you can’t help but feel like everything is going to be alright. Seeing Rick Sr. break while holding that kid, as he smiles ear-to-ear, epitomized what many fathers-to-be feel at that moment of time. Yeah, he’s been a shitty father himself, but the idea of being a grandfather makes him think that maybe things aren’t all bad.

It’s a powerful scene.

There’s a lot of greatness in the totality of White Boy Rick. It’s an attention-grabbing crime drama with great performances, supporting characters that liven the story, and a narrative that will make you hate the justice system more than you might already. The ending is downright infuriating (SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS) because of the FBI claiming no responsibility to what happens, despite being the root cause of everything. If they wrote this ending in any random movie, I would be ranting hard in this section of the review about how much it pissed me off. Unfortunately, the ending is what happened in real life. It makes everything hit a lot harder when you realize this was the only way the movie could end. It is indeed frustrating but well, that’s just what happened. The final prison scene is downright tragic. To add even more misery, the final captions explaining the fate of the real-life people show us that sometimes in life, you get screwed no matter what your intentions were.

In other news, Cinema Loco gives this movie the award for “Best Gross-Out Scene of 2018“, with Rick Jr. having to use a colostomy bag at one point, and Rick Sr. deciding to wash it out because they are too expensive to throw away.

Now, I’m cheap myself, but I’m not that cheap.

White Boy Rick is a really good down-and-dirty crime film that only suffers from some minor issues. The only thing that truly sticks out like a sore thumb is Richie Merritt as the main star. In his screen debut, he is completely eclipsed by McConaughey, Powley, and even Jonathan Majors at times. He isn’t the emotional lead that has the capability to lead this cast. In fairness, this is probably how a 15-year-old drug dealer from Detroit would act, so it’s hard to give him too much shit. Unfortunately, he just wasn’t as entertaining as he needed to be as the protagonist for us to get behind and that much was clear. Maybe the fact that he sticks out so badly as the star, mirrors how the character stuck out in the circles he hung around in. In that case, it would make sense, but I’m probably overthinking this one. Nevertheless, when you add a great soundtrack, gritty cinematography that impeccably embodies the drug scene of 1980s Detroit, and an interesting story with events that you never see coming (if you aren’t aware of the real-life story of our main character), you can’t help but appreciate this movie for what it is. It’s offbeat, creative, and above all else, interesting as hell.

White Boy Rick may be remembered more in the future for McConaughey crushing the supporting role, but I assure you the rest of the movie is still very compelling.