“White Boy Rick” works better as a working-class father/son drama than a cautionary tale about the American judicial system, though it never comes together satisfactorily as either.
Even with standout performances from Matthew McConaughey and newcomer Richie Merritt, the crime drama (★★ out of four; rated R; in theaters nationwide Friday) is as bleak as drug-ridden Detroit actually was in the mid-1980s and lacks sympathetic characters as it chronicles the rise of a teenager in Motor City’s shadiest corners.
Also: ‘White Boy Rick’ breakout Richie Merritt had never heard of his famous co-star
Based on the stranger-than-fiction true story of Richard Werse Jr., who hit the trifecta of street hustler, FBI informant and young drug kingpin by age 16, “White Boy Rick” starts by showing the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Richard Sr. (McConaughy) fosters a dream of owning a video store while dealing arms on the side, and Rick (Merritt) frequently stops by the local roller rink, a front for the drug-pushing Curry Crew, where he sells weapons and becomes buds with young “Boo” Curry (RJ Cyler).
When Rick Sr. gets in gun trouble, the kid is recruited by Agent Snyder (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and the FBI to go undercover with the Curry gang in order to keep his dad out of the slammer. Rick deals with the highs and lows – living the illegal high life, being dropped (and used) by the feds, helping his manic addict sister Dawn (Bel Powley) – and director Yann Demange corrals the various episodes like a puzzle, albeit with a final visual that’s never quite in focus.
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