Review of Dallas Buyers Club (2013) by Dillinger P — 05 Jan 2015

God knows what drugs Matthew McConaughey has been on for the last 2 years, but they sure as hell destroying his past efforts, with sheer power house performances. In 15 minutes he almost steals the show off Leo in Wolf Of Wall Street and in Interstellar he proves to us he has leading man written all over him.

Here he's just gone Christian Bale on our ass and the outcome is excellent to say the least. Homophobic Texan Ron Woodroof is a rock and roll, rodeo shit head, that cares only about banging chicks and hitting the booze, with a good old bit of rodeo inbetween.

After passing out one day, he soon finds himself in serious trouble, when he is diagnosed with HIV and the AIDS virus. He is promised 30 days to live and goes on the hunt for a cure. This leads him to finding a more naturalistic way of fighting off the disease but leaves his fighting a more corrupt nemesis, the FDA.

Its strong Oscar winning stuff really from the get go. It's an encapsulating drama that grips and pulls out most of the right punches, but its not entirely new and were it not for the 3 lead actors handing out gold, this film wouldnt stand up to the hype.

As mentioned Matthew is on his A game, dropping stones to achieve his look, it works, the flux of weight and colour of his skin add to the sheer agony we feel for him as a character, even if he starts out as someone pretty detestable.

Jared Leto, now where the fuck did that performance come from? In fact if your not on the ball, you wouldnt even notice it was him. This is the best I have ever seen him, he too sheds the pounds and fires out a pungent performance and a transexual AIDS victim.

He is completely on another planet here and from now on, my eyes will be firmly peeled to his follow up performances. Hilary Swank also turns in a strong but by no means ground breaking performance, however she is the rock that allows the other 2, to go to town.

The look and feel of the film is top notch and its grittiness, visually, is compelling enough, but its nothing fresh. Although the story is based on true events and the movie hits the right notes, it still feels extremely hungry for notoriety.

It has Academy Awards written all over it and no, thats not a bad thing as such, but these films to me, drop the ball a little, they become more about appeasing the masses than the source material. A power house of performances, carries an average film and it definately is worth your time.