Dallas Buyers Club Review

I saw Dallas Buyers Club in November, but with awards season coming up I figured I would get around to writing the review for it. Dallas Buyers Club was a very good movie about the AIDS disease. It looked at the controversy of the early medications, and the efforts of Ron Woodroof to get that medication to himself and other patients to prolong their lives. I was very impressed with the performances of Matthew McConaughey, who proves that he can act. I've always liked McConaughey-seems like an easy going actor that loves shooting movies. He has really been doing well in the independent movie business, most recently in Mud. In this movie, it might be difficult to like the actual character of Ron, because his personality is pretty despicable early on. He's a womanizer, racist, etc. However, McConaughey is able to show signs of change in Ron's personality throughout the movie. I felt his chemistry with Jennifer Garner, who plays Dr. Eve Saks to be very natural, and her role is important in terms of discovering flaws in certain medications. Ron's medications are what the patients need. It's incredible to see the physical transformation of McConaughey in this. He really went all out for this role, and throughout the movie gave a tremendous performance which has earned him a nomination at the Golden Globes, and most likely the Oscars. As great as McConaughey was, I believe the star of this movie was actually Jared Leto. I couldn't believe how much he transformed himself in this to portray the character of Rayon. He literally looked like a woman, but he stole every scene he was in. Leto has always been great at portraying great characters. I always felt he was an underrated actor, and his performance here struggling with his sexuality and his father, as well as the dreaded feeling of being lonely made for a magnificent performance worthy of recognition. McConaughey and Leto worked so well with each other. They are such polar opposites in terms of their reputations as actors, but they really used that well here. The Ron & Rayon characters are so different, but similar as they're both judged for different reasons. This is a great example of two actors giving outstanding performances in a movie dealing with controversial material that ended up working well. Along with these performances you also have the direction of Jean-Marc Vallee combined with the writing of Craig Borten & Melissa Wallack to really create a positive achievement in movie making. I give this movie a 4/5 overall. The nominations for this movie thus far for awards season are well deserved.