Our prisons are filled to the brim with inmates serving time for drug offenses. “White Boy Rick” is a film that illustrates the modernly relatable problems and injustices of Ronald Reagan-era drug laws, but with a selective, half-baked, and white historical gloss.
“White Boy Rick” tells the true story of Richard Wershe Jr. (played by Richie Merritt) enlisted by the FBI as a 14-year-old informant. In a predominantly African-American neighborhood on the east side of Detroit, Richard is given the nickname “White Boy Rick” as he ascends through the drug-peddling community to be a cocaine kingpin at the ripe old age of 15. The FBI is Rick’s entry into the drug game, and is responsible for his unceremonious exit after Rick continues to sell after his informant career ends.
During his short tenure selling drugs, Rick lived lavishly, but the focus of the film is Rick’s relationship with his father, Richard Wershe Sr. (Matthew McConaughey). McConaughey slimmed down to his gaunt physique akin to his role from “Dallas Buyers Club” to portray the gun-dealing Richard Sr. Considered a failure by his son and abandoned by his daughter and wife, Rick Sr. spends the better part of the film doing what he can to hold what’s left of his family intact. The movie’s only emotionally gripping parts are when McConaughey basks in simple moments of happiness and despairs at his failings as a father.
In many ways, “White Boy Rick” is a coming of age story for our protagonist and a generation of young black men in Detroit. Set in 1984, the impact of crack cocaine is abundantly apparent throughout the movie. The propensity to sell drugs for an escape from economic destitution is so seamless because the circumstances are so dire. The added layer of race paints an even bleaker picture. In one scene, drug kingpin Johnny “Lil Man” Curry (Jonathan Majors) says to Rick, “they haul your [butt] in and you’re doing white time; they haul our [butts] in and we doing black time.” Throughout, there are signals that Rick’s treatment by law enforcement and even within the gang itself is a privileged status from his possession of whiteness.
Individually, the performances pass muster. McConaughey stands out being the only A-lister on set. Richie Merritt, in his first major motion picture role, plays “White Boy Rick” cleanly, albeit with a strange, oscillating accent between a mumbling country bumpkin and gangster caricature. What’s lacking is the chemistry between major characters, which is neither compelling nor particularly convincing. At times when the audience is supposed to be emotive by the interpersonal relationship between Rick and Rick Sr., McConaughey and Merritt never seem to be in sync, leaving otherwise well-constructed scenes unfulfilled.
As the credits roll, most audience members will leave “White Boy Rick” whimsically inferring how unfair and unjust America’s drug laws are. But, since the movie cuts out major plot points of Rick’s actual circumstances, deeper inspection reveals how narratively peculiar parts of the movie really are. It’s also difficult to not be disappointed in performances on screen when statements by Rick Sr. and “White Boy Rick” eclipse them in their interviews and statements to the media. Perhaps cutting against a major plot point of the film, Rick’s father states in an interview with Atavist Magazine, “my daughter became sick on doing drugs … my son became sick on power, the excitement, the prestige, the money, and the glamour of selling. OK? He became sick.” McConaughey barely reaches that same fever pitch in his advocacy.
Out on parole, White Boy Rick likely will watch this movie and find it to be a charitable summation of his teenage drug-wielding years. Audiences will leave burdened with reconciling a drug problem familiar to our current sociopolitical environment for people of color with sympathy for a white boy who benefited from a hungry FBI until he flew too close to the sun.
Tyler Grant (@The_Tyler_Grant) is a Young Voices contributor, who completed a Fulbright Fellowship in Taiwan.
