It's 1985 and Ron Woodruff (McConaughey) starts the movie sickly but undiagnosed having wild sex with some rodeo groupies, making us in the audience go EEEEWWWWW! We know he already had AIDS and are horrified by the prospect of him unwittingly giving it to the two hotties he is boning. But fate soon gets him to the hospital where he finds not only does he have full blown AIDS, he only has thirty days to live. He desperately tries to get onto the new AZT trials but soon realizes that not only will the study possibly be giving him placebos instead of the drug, but after acquiring some illegally, the drug doesn't work as advertised.
So Ron heads to Mexico where he finds alternative medicines that work better than what the FDA has approved and soon starts transporting these medicines across the border, much to the chagrin of the DEA, FDA and other alphabet government goons. Ron acquires the help of transvestite and fellow AIDS suffered Rayon (Leto) who didn't actually exist in real life but is a great character nonetheless. Together they start the Dallas Buyers Club which doesn't sell drugs but memberships which of course gets him into all sorts of trouble with the Federal Government, pissed that someone is doing something that is working without their okay. Big Pharma and doctors conspire to do everything they can to get rid of Woodruff, using the police, the IRS and DEA to hound him at every juncture, even though his regiment is better than the poison AZT they are selling. Ron extends his life from the thirty days given to more than seven years by doing everything they said not to.
This movie took decades to make as funding could never be found. I find this terribly suspicious as this screenplay was money and had award season all over it. So if money or prestige wasn't the issue what was? Most likely, the subversive tone over how bad our FDA system is may have made many not wanting to see an IRS audit of their own over telling people this fact. The film goes into great detail over how drugs are actually sold and the health of the patient is far down on the list of concerns. It's one of the reasons I want the FDA disbanded and reformed because this crap is dangerous and explains lots over why legal drugs kill more people than all other illegal drugs combined. And thanks to an overly generous Supreme Court ruling, if you are harmed in any way over a bad drug reaction, no matter if the company on purpose put it out there knowing it was dangerous, you can't sue. Awesome.
The Feds did everything they could to destroy Woodruff, demanding he take the unreliable AZT rather than the drug cocktail he was using which actually worked. Big Pharma couldn't make a fortune off of vitamins and plasma, so they leaned on the government to do their bidding. Even in the 80's, these companies had more power than the Federal Government. Imagine what they can do today.
This is a must see. Some of the best parts are when Woodruff tries to get back with his homophobic circle of friends after his AIDS diagnosis who now all assume he is gay and that's how he got it. It is real life for certain on film. It also shows how legal drugs are not always the panacea they are advertised as. I have written extensively that a lot of the drugs on the market are snake oil and herbal remedies in many cases are better. Weed is a good example of something that is better used than many THC derivatives like Marinol who has a side effect of psychotic behavior and may have led to several murders. Weed just gives you the muchies not a desire to slaughter your whole family. But pot is cheap and plentiful. Hell, you could grow it yourself. But Big Pharma wants to continue to soak us with worthless garbage and not necessarily what will make us better.
This is a must see movie and one that won't be forgotten anytime soon.
5 stars out of 5.
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