Dallas Buyers Club

Movie Title--  Dallas Buyers Club

Release Year--  2013

Running Time--  1 Hour and 57 Minutes

Director--  Jean-Marc Vallee

Cast--  Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto, Jennifer Garner, Steve Zahn, Dennis O'Hare, Griffin Dunne

After Dallas electrician Ron Woodroof is diagnosed with AIDS in 1985, he works around the FDC to provide AIDS patients with their medication.

Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey) is a hustler and electrician in Dallas, Texas in 1985 when he is electrocuted at his job and sent to the hospital.  When he comes to at the hospital the doctor comes in and tells him that a few blood tests had been run, the results being that he was HIV-positive and gives him only 30 days to live.  Ron is angered by this, cussing the doctor and accusing him of calling him a homosexual and he storms out of the hospital.  Not long after that, his friends and family turns their backs on him.

Ron is in denial about his diagnosis until he does some research on HIV and AIDS and sees that it can be contracted by intravenous drug use, then remembers having unprotected sex with a prostitute with track marks all over her.  He then learns about a drug called AZT which is supposed to prolong the lives of AIDS patients and he goes back to the hospital and speaks to Dr. Eve Saks (Jennifer Garner) about taking the drug when he is told that the hospital is doing a drug trial for it.  He pays an orderly to steal the drug for him, and he begins to self medicate himself with it.  Soon the orderly can no longer get him the drug and he finds himself back in the hospital where he meets Rayon (Jared Leto), a HIV-positive trans woman and drug addict that has gotten into the AZT program and he is openly hostile to her.

Ron travels to Mexico to get AZT from Dr. Vass (Griffin Dunne), a doctor that the orderly recommended to him so he could obtain more of the drug.  Dr. Vass informs Ron that he doesn't provide patients with AZT because it is "poison" as he calls it and that it kills every healthy cell it comes in contact with.  Then he tells Ron that due to him taking the drug and his heavy cocaine use, his immune system has been broken down and the HIV has turned into AIDS.  Ron stays in Dr. Vass' care for three months, his health improving the whole time and as he is getting ready to return home to Dallas, he realizes that he could be selling the drugs he is on to HIV  patients.  He returns home and comes back into contact with Rayon and together they start the Dallas Buyers Club.

This film really was incredible.  Matthew McConaughey gave an Oscar worth performance in this film (he won Best Actor at the Oscars for this film) and I think I have to honestly say it was one of the best performances of his I have ever seen.  He reacted how I imagine a heterosexual man would react in that time; with aggression and anger.  Then once he finally got over his denial about his diagnosis, he turned into a shrewd but caring business man.

However, the underdog here (an underdog that won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar might I add) is Jared Leto.  He was truly amazing in this film.  There were times while I was watching that I actually forgot that he was a man playing a gay man that wants to be woman and I just saw him as purely a trans woman.  His performance is just wowing, it is one of those that you would have to see to really believe how good he was.  He really does make a beautiful woman.

I would recommend this film to anyone.  I think that it really is a film that everyone should see.  The HIV/AIDS virus is still out there although it never seems to get very much press anymore.  This film, in the very least, should be viewed to see how far we have come since people were first getting diagnosed with this disease.  If you watch it for that reason alone, make sure you stay for the acting; this one will not disappoint, I promise and Don't Forget the Popcorn!