Dallas Buyers Club (2013) - A Movie Review by Andrew Lawrence

Director: Jean-Marc Vallée
Screenwriters: Craig Borten, Melisa Wallack 
Stars: Matthed McConaughey, Jared Leto, Jennifer Garner 
Trailer link
IMDb page

The Matthew McConassance: 

After doing "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" in 2009, Matthew McConaughey took a break from acting. He had been making romantic comedies almost exclusively up until then, and was suffering from one of the most severe cases of typecasting syndrome in history, playing the typical good looking playboy in every movie he ever appeared in. The native Texan seemed determined to break this curse when he eventually returned to the screen in 2011, and after turning in a string of great performances in alternative low budget films such as Bernie, Killer Joe, Magic Mike and Mud, McConaughey quickly became on of the hottest American actors working today, landing leading roles in 2014's "Interstellar", the upcoming Christopher Nolan film, and one of 2013's leading Oscar contenders, Jean-Marc Vallée's long awaited Dallas Buyers Club. McConaughey seems to be unstoppable at the moment, and if you were to trust most critiques and audiences, his performance in this movie is the best he has ever given. 

A most troublesome decade:

Dallas Buyers Club had a long journey to the silver screen, with actors such as Woody Harrelson, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt attached to it, before Matthew McConaughey finally was able to get it off the ground by financing parts of the production himself. The film takes place in 1985, where a homophobic trailer trash-redneck by the name of Ron Woodroof is diagnosed with the HIV virus during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980's. No one knew anything about the virus back in 1985, and when Ron learns that the most effective drugs have not yet been approved for distribution in the US, his personal struggle to survive evolves into a full blown war against the pharmaceutical corporations and the doctors who are prescribing dangerous meds to sick Americans. Not only does Woodroof come up with a clever way of getting the right drugs to the people who desperately need them, but his predicament also serves as a catalyst to a personal transformation that changes his perception of life completely. 

Come aboard the Oscar-wagon!:

Given the humanistic and historical nature of the film, Dallas Buyers Club was destined to get a lot of awards consideration even before it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in early September. McConaughey and Jared Leto lost a lot of weight in order to portray their AIDS-smitten characters as truthfully as possible, the film makes good use of the classic "bad person turns into a better person though trials and tribulations"-recipe, and it deals with a piece of American history that had a lot of impact on the way things work today. That being said tough, Dallas Buyers Club actually has a lot to offer in terms of storytelling and artistic value, and thanks to some great editing and genuinely engaging performances, it manages to break the common "Oscar bait"-stereotype, and thus becomes more than an excuse for McConaughey and Leto to win some flashy statues. 

The man in the middle:

Anyone who follows the awards race at least somewhat actively, will know that Matthew McConaughey is the current favourite to win this year's Oscar for best performance by an actor in a leading role. I have not seen all of the best movies from 2013 yet, but based on what I saw in Dallas Buyers Club, it would come as a surprise to me if Matt M. does not take home the coveted statue. He is more than just unrecognizable in this movie, and even though I personally am getting a bit tired of his characteristic southern mannerisms, his performance as Ron Woodroof is very impressive, and he manages to make the character both appalling and engaging at the same time. I personally think his performance in Ben Nichols' Mud is slightly better, but him winning the Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club still would not be a bad thing in my opinion. 

A double-edge sword of editing:

One of the things that elevated this film from "good" to "very good" for me, is the way in which some the scenes are edited. Especially the first 45 minutes felt very snappy and engaging in my opinion, because instead of using long expositional chunks of dialogue to propel the story he was trying to tell, the director, who also co-edited the film, chose to use facial expressions and quick cuts in order to explain what happens next. I absolutely love when movies pull this off effectively, and Dallas Buyers Club does it very very well. Jean-Marc Vallée and Martin Pensa did get an Oscar nod for best editing, and had the middle portion of the film not suffered from some tonal inconsistencies and a few fairly repetitive scenes, I think they would have been the front runners in this category. As it is the case with all of the other technical awards however, "Gravity" probably will end up taking it home instead. 

A very solid over all product: 

In my opinion, Dallas Buyers Club is a very good movie with some very good central performances, that could have been even better if its budget had been a little more generous. A significant part of the the middle of the film did feel repetitive and a bit off kilter in my opinion, and I was not surprised to learn that the movie was shot in just 27 days on a budget of 4,5 million dollars, often using hand held cameras and natural lighting. This film is a passion project for the director and most of the main cast; a fact that clearly comes to show in some of its more emotional scenes, and I respect them for creating such a good movie with what little money and time they had on their hands. Dallas Buyers Club is just short of being one of my favourite films of 2013, but it is still one heck of a movie that I would recommend to just about anyone who enjoys good movies and incredible acting.