***Cowboy Shrugged –Matthew McConaughey’s Dallas Buyers Club

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

DVD Review

Dallas Buyers Club, Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Jared Leto, 2013

Damn AIDS, Damn Homophobia, Damn Big Pharma, Damn the FDA, hell damn your average 1980s Texas Cowboy (and not just them and maybe not just then) but please do not damn Matthew McConaughey’s performance as Ron Woodroof, uh, your average 1980s Texas homophobic cowboy-with AIDS. It is Oscar-worthy. He plays the role of a low-down macho, whiskey-drinking, coke-snorting, whoring cowboy who, to his own initial disbelief, is diagnosed with HIV which can lead, and did lead, to AIDS in many cases (including in the end his own case). You know AIDS, the 1980s idea of AIDS, the disease that only homos, faggots, queers, drug-users got, got if you believed the preachers, brought down by the wrath of God for non-God-fearing sinful behavior and good riddance.

The tale told on the screen, and the reason that McConaughey’s performance is Oscar-worthy, is that of resourceful cowboy Woodroof’s struggle to self-medicate himself in order to defy the original thirty-day prognosis for his survival (he survived seven years). In the process he had to fight the local medical establishment, big Pharma, big FDA, and his own homophobic worldview in order to procure drugs, maybe dangerous, maybe helpful in a day when patients were dying while those establishments were scratching their heads and were overwhelmed by the epidemic.

But our man Woodroof was a relentless sort, didn’t want to die, didn’t want to die without his boots on and so, with the help of Rayon (played by Jared Leto), a fellow patient and transsexual (a good-looking one too), he does an end around and establishes the Dallas Buyers Club as a source for the afflicted to get some relieve. And all hell comes down on him. That fight against all hell is what drives the film, and what drives McConaughey out of the comfort zone of many of his previous performances (romantic roles, Lincoln Lawyertough hombre stuff). Enough said.