Set in the bombed-out husk of 1980’s Detroit, White Boy Rick tells the rather incredible true story of Rick Wershe, Jr., a down-and-out kid who became the youngest ever FBI informant at the tender young age of 14.

While undoubtedly an interesting little factoid, the detail of Rick’s young age isn’t really as important to the story as the film’s billing tries to have us believe. After all, isn’t a story about anyone who turns informant against some really, really bad guys – regardless of age – story enough? In White Boy Rick it is.

The film is a well-executed but improbable father-son tale with danger, crime, betrayal, and lost innocence running through its veins. Yes, Rick is just a kid, but more importantly he is a sympathetic victim of the inner-city decay and a forgotten byproduct of the nation’s zero tolerance policy against drugs during the ‘80s.

The story is centered on the Wershe family, father Rick, Sr. (Matthew McConaughey), son Ricky (Richie Merritt), and sister Dawn (Bel Powley), who live in Detroit’s working-class east side where jobs are scarce and infrastructure has imploded following the fall of the American auto industry. The depraved drug subculture and criminal underworld thrive in this shell of a city that becomes a character as big as any of the film’s human chaarcters.

But father Rick Sr. is a survivor, always thinking that his next deal will finally put his family ahead. He buys and sells guns out of the trunk of his car but also harbors the dream of one day opening a chain of video stores. See, he truly wants the best for his family, but struggles to stop the cycle of generational poverty running rampant in this part of the country. When asked why he didn’t just move the family out of the city when the family’s matriarch abandoned them, Rick tells his son, “The lion don’t leave the Serengeti. And besides, this is going to be our year. I can feel it.”

Although this is Ricky’s story, the importance of Rick Sr.’s role as the glue that binds it all together is also tantamount to everything working as well as it does. And McConaughey’s performance here is a big one. He’s like any other father, just trying to do what’s best for his family, but is ill-equipped, at best, to do so. Though it could have so easily tipped over into a cartoonish caricature, McConaughey’s performance remains grounded in real emotion. And while we hope we would never make the same decisions he does, we understand them.{googleads}

Growing up in his father’s footsteps is wet-behind-the-ears Ricky who quickly learns his Dad’s gun business. But it is his familiarity with the major players in his neighborhood’s drug culture that eventually draws the attention of the FBI, depicted by Jennifer Jason Leigh and Rory Cochrane, who turn the screws on young Ricky to become a confidential undercover informant. Though Ricky isn’t buying or selling drugs at the time, his FBI informants teach him the ins and outs of how to buy and sell drugs and otherwise pass himself off as legit, despite his obvious “whiteness” in the predominantly African-American neighborhood. Remember this for later: the Feds taught Ricky how to be a drug dealer.

It is not long before White Boy Rick (dubbed so by his black friends) begins to excel at his new profession. As the assignments given him by the FBI continue to escalate and become more and dangerous, Ricky’s confidence equally swells. Not sure if it’s just a lucky first shot or if this kid really has something, but Merritt does a fantastic job playing both sides of the same coin. We believe in his newfound kingpin swagger as he moves up the criminal ladder, while also seeing the innocence of a fresh-faced young kid caught up in a game he’s both thrilled by and scared of. His charismatic attraction with McConaughey is a large part of why the film works as well as it does and kudos to director Yann Demange (’71) for recognizing what he had and nurturing their chemistry.

As expected, the Wershe empire eventually crumbles leaving Ricky in jail to serve a mandatory life sentence even though it was the FBI who initially supplied the drugs and taught him how to deal. Many of the events that lead to Ricky’s downfall play offscreen as does much of the behind-the-scenes stuff that allows the cops to build their case. We get only a short montage of how the cocaine is processed, and even less of how Ricky built his criminal empire and eventual fortune. But that’s not really the story being told here by screenwriters Andy Weiss and Logan Miller. There are many more films out there that do that part better.

Instead, this is a coming-of-age story with a father and son relationship at its core. And as such, it is a very solid representative of the genre and a good film on its own right. It is sad, heartfelt, funny, entertaining, and as dangerous as a box of dynamite. In addition, White Boy Rick might feature the best ever use of Funkadelic’s Get Off Your Ass and Jam in film.

Film Details

MPAA Rating: R for language throughout, drug content, violence, some sexual references, and brief nudity.
Runtime: 111 mins
Director: Yann Demange
Writer: Andy Weiss, Logan Miller
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Richie Merritt, Bel Powley
Genre: Crime | Drama
Tagline: Hustler. Informant. Kingpin. Legend.
Memorable Movie Quote: "The lion don’t leave the Serengeti. And besides, this is going to be our year. I can feel it."
Theatrical Distributor: Columbia Pictures Corporation
Official Site:
Release Date: September 14, 2018
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: December 25, 2018.
Synopsis: The story of teenager Richard Wershe Jr., who became an undercover informant for the FBI during the 1980s and was ultimately arrested for drug-trafficking and sentenced to life in prison.

Blu-ray Review

Blu-ray Details:

White Boy Rick - Blu-ray + Digital

Home Video Distributor: Sony Pictures
Available on Blu-ray - December 25, 2018
Screen Formats: 2.40:1
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, Spanish
Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1; English: Dolby Digital 5.1; French: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Discs: BBlu-ray Disc; Single disc (1 BD-50); Digital copy; Movies Anywhere
Region Encoding: Region A, B, C

There's not a lot of color in the film. Nor is it very pretty. In fact, it gets down and dirty with a lot of gritty, grimy action that takes place outdoors in a barren Cleveland, Ohio that stands in for middle-of-winter Detroit, i.e. stark white cloud-covered skies blend into the snowy landscape with only the occasional pop of color standing out. And what little color there is comes during the film's night scenes either on the lamplit streets or inside the darkened skating rink where artificial fluorescent pinks and blues look very good and are handled nicely in the transfer against the deep dark blacks. In other words, this isn't a disc you'd want to pop in to impress your fiends or family with the new OLED rig you got for Christmas. That has nothing to do with the quality of the transfer but rather the scenes in the film that just don't lend themselves to impressing the eyes.

The audio side is a different story, however. Whether it is getting us started off with Johnny Cash's Cocaine Blues, Paul Simon's Take Me to the Mardi Gras, or even Funkadelic's Get Off Your Ass and Jam that brings the skating rink scenes to life, the 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track is a treat to the ears as it immerses us in the total experience until Max Richter's soaring score again starts working its way around the room. And then there are the gun shots – lordy! are the gunshots loud. Engine revs and tire screeches bring the booms of the sub-woofer to life. It is a dialogue heavy production so the center channel handles most of the auditory load.

Pop the disc in and six trailers begin on autoplay before jumping into the menu screen that offers Scene Selections and Special Features.

Supplements:

Commentary:

• There is no commentary track

Special Features:

• Speaking of special features, there's a pretty cool Trivia track that plays along with the movie and occasionally pops up with facts and stats about the making of the film or the actual events that inspired it. Think MTV's pop-up video.
• Deleted Scenes - Six scenes that weren't included in the film.
• The Unknown True Story of Rick Wirshe, Jr. (05:25) - Basically a making-of that features the film's director, producer, and some of the stars speaking to the inspiration of the story's main character. There's some footage, snap shots and audio recordings from the real Rick Wirshe, Jr. who helped the filmmakers define the character and speak to the its significant nod to the importance of family as a main theme of the film.
• Making of (05:17) - Several of the film'a actors, its producer, and director Yann Demange sit down for the camera as they speak about the importance of music to the film and how it puts the setting in a certain time and place. They also address Wirshe's upbringing and the impact of his life sentence. Then Amy Westcott, the film's costume designer speaks to the use of fabrics, costumes, and hairstyles that were needed to fake the look of the '80s.
• Three Tribes of Detroit: The Cast (10:14) - Covers the actors and inspirations for the Worse family, Johnyy's crew, and the Feds.