Matthew McConaughey confidently carries on his shoulders this true story of Ron Woodroof, an AIDS sufferer who smuggled, stole and clashed with the law in order to get effective non-FDA-approved medication for himself and others in the late 80s and early 90s. Everyone else in the film stands in his shadow.
McConaughey, who lost fifty pounds for the role and looks like a skeleton with a mustache, starts off as a blue collar creep who loves drugs and women, hates homosexuals—the film emphasizes multiple times that Woodroof is hetero to the max—and runs some shady deals on the side. He embodies everything bad that people think about lower class Texas men. He even lives in a trailer.
After he learns that he has HIV—circa 1985, when the virus was just coming into prominence and was commonly associated with gay men—and his doctors give him thirty days to live, he devotes himself to research and bribes his way into some under-the-table doses of AZT, a then-experimental AIDS treatment drug not yet prescribed by doctors. When that source dries up, he goes to Mexico and discovers even better medication. The only problem: the FDA in the US doesn’t acknowledge it. So, he gets the bright idea to sneak loads of the stuff up to Dallas and distribute it to other AIDS cases. He starts off doing it for profit, but along the way, as he lives seven years longer than the doctors said, it becomes a cause.
This is a well-made film and Oscar bait for sure, but it’s never too annoying about it. There’s a sentimental element here, but director Jean-Marc Vallée keeps it at a tasteful simmer. He and cinematographer Yves Bélanger show the late 80s as a faded photograph. It’s all muted colors and un-beautiful, a spare stage for an actor’s showcase.