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White Boy Rick review: Matthew McConaughey’s crime drama has too many plot holes

Starring Matthew McConaughey and Richie Merritt, the 2018 movie is about the youngest FBI informant coming from a broken family

2.5/5

Akshay Krishna

Feb 28, 2022

A still from White Boy Rick

White Boy Rick

Story: Set in Detroit during 1984, the peak of the crack epidemic, the movie is loosely based on the life of Richard Wershe Jr., who became the youngest FBI informant in the country at the age of 14. His job with the FBI slowly gives him a better life, while at the same time a worse one.

Review: There are some movies that you finish watching, and feel that a lot of things were missing in the story. This is the case with White Boy Rick starring Richie Merritt, Matthew McConaughey, Bel Powley, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Brian Tyree Henry among others. While the family crime drama offers some good moments between a father-son relationship that slowly deteriorates, it fails to impress with a lot of the other aspects.

The movie is loosely based on the real-life story of Richard Wershe Jr., who in the 1980s became the youngest FBI informant ever at the age of 14. Set in Detroit during the peak of the ‘Crack epidemic’, the story does a fairly mediocre job at bringing the real life of the city on screen. While it shows the city is hugely populated by Black Americans doing crimes and enjoying lives at skating rinks, the movie fails to show any real life of the community. On the other hand, one of the positives of the movie is the family drama it offers. The broken family of a 14-year-old whose mother has run away and a drug addict sister is portrayed well. The relationship between a hustler father who sells guns illegally to survive and a son who slowly drifts from the father is neatly done.

To say the movie is loosely based on a real story is fitting because that is how the viewer feels after the movie ends. There is a feeling of real essence missing throughout the story of the 14-year-old boy, who turns into an FBI informant and infiltrates a gang. Though the changes that happen to a teenager's life following this are shown well, there are questions that end up being asked. There is also a real lack of portrayal of most other characters in the movie, which mostly deals with Wershe Jr who is now White Boy Rick to his friends. The constant use of cliches such as the portrayal of the white and Black lives as good and disorderly is a recurring theme in the movie. Most of the movie’s shortcomings can be credited to the writing.

In a movie that mostly lets down the viewer easily, there are a few positives to it. The performances of Matthew McConaughey as Richard Wershe Sr. and Bel Powley as Dawn Wershe are strong, yet touching. Some of the scenes between this father-daughter pair also deserve a shoutout. Jennifer Jason Leigh appears as FBI Agent Alex Snyder in the movie, but it is confusing to come to a conclusion about the character and the casting, which is again, down to the makers. The camera work for the movie is also fitting, with most dim-lit shots making the viewer feel right at the spot where the story is taking place.

Verdict: While White Boy Rick sometimes works as a touching family drama about a broken family and a teenager losing grips with his father, the movie leaves too many holes in its story about the real-life character of Richard Wershe Jr. While there are some solid performances from some of the lead cast members, even this can't save a movie that feels half-cooked.

Watch the trailer here:

White Boy Rick review: Matthew McConaughey’s crime drama has too many plot holes

Akshay Krishna

A still from White Boy Rick

Cast and Crew

Daniel Lamont

King Wesley

Victoria Watkins

Chris Drexel

Thomas Patrick Smith

Anthony Woods

Denise Barone

Richard Phillis

Debbie Scaletta

Carly Tamborski

Carlos Gonzalez

Heidi Sulzman

Angela Cole

Rick Dremann

Peter Lawson Jones

Logan Fry

Allison Rowe

Lare Roberts

Sue Danna Myer

Crystalann Jones

Amy Lyn Elliott

F. Robert McMurray

Carmen Gangale

Alan B. Jones

Matt Ridley

YG

Joseph O'Brien

Joe Maurer

Branislav R. Tatalovic

Karin Boesler

Ayriel Strange

Kylee Williams Russell

Sean Patrick Bryan

Dave Moody

Ember Burns

Michael Eric

Alan B. Jones

Meka Butler

Elizabeth Gilpin

Darko Nikolic

George Seder

Leigh Kilton

Eric Frank

Mark Sawtelle

Danny Brown

Scott Connors

Ari Handel

Rod Fielder

Gary Lee Vincent

Roger Petan

Brian Bowman

James Howard

Laura Allen

Adam Hicks

Brian Jones

Daniel Repas

Joe Morales

James Quinn

Megan Marie Wilson

David Marnell

Jon Silk

Brian Andrus

Mark Salas

Anita Farmer Bergman

Richard Doone

Richie Merritt

Matthew McConaughey

Jennifer Jason Leigh

Bel Powley

RJ Cyler

Rory Cochrane

Eddie Marsan

Bruce Dern

Piper Laurie

Brian Tyree Henry

Taylour Paige