Directed by: Yann Demange
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Richie Merritt, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Bel Powley, RJ Cyler, Rory Cochrane, Bruce Dern, Piper Laurie, Eddie Marsan
White Boy Rick captures the gloom of 1980's Detroit right, but never gives us a reason to care about its subject. By the age of 17, Rick Wershe, Jr. (Merritt) was sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole for running a small drug empire under the nose of the city's more powerful dealers, but are we supposed to be outraged because White Boy Rick (his nickname) was sentenced to a lengthier sentence than some murderers? The movie leans toward that argument, stating in the epilogue about how long Rick served in prison for a "nonviolent offense". He may not have actually fired a gun at anyone, but his product killed people. Let's not forget he was only 17. Give him a couple more years and he likely would've had to bust a cap in someone, considering his chosen profession.
Rick's sentence is immaterial because the story leading up to it plods along with characters drifting in and out of focus. Sometimes characters pop up again after a long period offscreen just to remind us they're still in the movie. Rick himself may or may not have been a fifteen year-old kingpin/FBI informant as the trailers promise, but boy is he dull. I can't fault the Merritt performance because he isn't given much to play. Rick doesn't inspire much sympathy or any compelling reason for why his story needed to be told. He's sort of a drug kingpin and sort of an informant, and such a story can be made intriguing in the right hands, but here it is listless and lacking heat.
We first Rick at a gun show where he and his father Rick Sr. (McConaughey) manage to swing a good deal for themselves on some automatic weapons. Rick Sr. sells the guns and modifies others. He is a kind of, sort of legal arms dealer and kind of, sort of not. He has his son sell guns with silencers to local drug dealers and Rick Jr. is suddenly part of the drug underworld. His activities do not go unnoticed by local cops and FBI agents, who blackmail him into working undercover for them selling drugs in order to provide the agents with information on suppliers, deals, etc. Oh, and they allow Rick Jr. to keep a share of the profits, so he saves up thousands of dollars as a drug dealer/unpaid FBI informant.
White Boy Rick's more effective moments involve Rick's sister Dawn (Powley) who is hooked on crack and is rescued by Rick Jr. and his father in a hellish crack den, reminding me of the harrowing similar scene in 1991's Jungle Fever. Rick Jr. also has a child with a female acquaintance, which only served to remind me that the child's mother was in the movie earlier and that they shared a romantic moment in which they said they would take it slow. That plan didn't work as intended for either person. It is difficult thanks to the choppy editing, and many scenes being shot in near darkness, to keep track of the players.
A lot happens to Rick Jr. on his way to prison at age 17, but he is a blank slate. We don't feel we understand his motivations and we aren't inspired by his speech to his father to get into drug dealing as a way to save the family. At times, it seems to be a struggle for this kid to raise his voice to a level of audible speech. McConaughey has no such issues. He is a wheeler dealer father who is forever promising better things on the horizon while remaining a loser. White Boy Rick is about a family of losers who never rise above their loser tendencies. What the filmmakers don't tell us or show us is why we need to know about them more so than thousands of other families and dealers who suffered the same or worse fates.
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