White Boy Rick Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

White Boy Rick Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman January 7, 2019

This review discusses the real life of the title character and therefore contains spoilers for the film. Those wishing to avoid spoilers should skip to the technical portions of the review below and thereafter also move past the review of the included supplements.

Director Yann Demange's White Boy Rick is based on the true story of Richard Wershe Jr., a.k.a. "White Boy Rick," a young man whose life as an FBI informant, drug dealer, and illicit arms dealer ultimately landed him behind bars with a life sentence. Beyond the subject of the film, Rick is perhaps best known as the longest-serving nonviolent inmate in Michigan state history. His story is capably retold in the film, a story that begins when he is 15 years of age and spans several years through the mid-1980s. The tale depicts a family in crisis, a world shaped by guns, drugs, hard living, and little hope. It's a coming of age story at its heart, a darker tale not of life and potential realized but rather snuffed out by circumstance and poor choices. The film is not compelling, but it is competently assembled and carefully acted.

Rick Wershe Jr. (Richie Merritt) and his father Rick Sr. (Matthew McConaughey) scrape by in life buying guns legally, machining suppressors for them in their basement, and selling the modified weapons at profit. Rick Sr. dreams of going legit, however, by opening a chain of video rental stores. His son has no qualms about making money off the books, though, and when the FBI approaches him with an opportunity to pose as a "controlled buyer" for the local drug market, to identify sellers and points of sale, and get paid for doing so, he's all-in. But the opportunity to make quick money in the drug business is too tempting to resist. Behind his father's back he accumulates a small fortune over the years, first working for the FBI and eventually going into business for himself. But with so much product and money coming and going through him, he cannot stay off law enforcement's radar.

White Boy Rick is a "good" film that by its very nature cannot elevate to "great." The picture is texturally rich, seamlessly alive in the 1980s without forcing the period's culture or milking references as in other recent retro pictures which take place around the same time period. Instead, Demange keeps the focus on the story and characters, which are unfortunately just not compelling enough to carry a picture that runs as long as it does with little enriching characterization or story novelty. While the film capably shapes the characters and explores the tale, none of it feels particularly noteworthy or worth the audience's time investment. Demange certainly has a keen eye for style, for framing the story just-so and capturing his actor's emotional responses to any given scene, crisis, revelation, or moment of deep self-exploration, but the absence of a more compelling and original story leaves the picture struggling to find an identity and a purpose beyond regurgitating a familiar tale of life in crime and the consequences thereof on oneself and the larger world around that individual.

Merritt and McConaughey carry the film with a depth of believability that extends beyond the mechanics of their various enterprises and transforms them into a believable father-son tandem, defined by their own desires, paths, and pains and the experiences they share together, whether purchasing and selling weapons, forcibly rehabbing Rick's drug-addicted sister Dawn (Bel Powley), or fighting through the emotions of Rick's incarceration in the film's best and most emotionally driven final scenes. Both Merritt and McConaughey shape their characters individually with absolute inhabitation, the former particularly impressing in a debut role in which he creates a lifelike demeanor and oral cadence for his character, crafting a richly layered and deeply integrated work that portends great things for him in the future.

White Boy Rick Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

White Boy Rick was reportedly shot digitally, but the image's textural qualities practically pass for film, with what appears to be a grain overlay digitally inserted in post production to give the film a more authentic period look and textural feel. Sony's Blu-ray presentation is gorgeous beyond a few blips around the edges in the form of occasionally (and lightly) elevated blacks and mild compression artifacts visible in a few lower light shots. Shadow details are quite good for the most part, though. The picture is otherwise first-rate, offering rich, sharp, and highly detailed character, clothing, and environmental textures. Everything appears without missing a beat: neighborhood details such as housing and concrete, intimate facial features including pores and hair, and high yield clothing elements including heavy winter coats and denim. Every corner is sharp and finely appointed, wether intimate close-ups, medium distance interior shots, or more broadly expansive neighborhood vistas. Colors are very impressive. The palette appears modestly desaturated for tonal effect, but clothing colors are impressively deep, as are cars and colorful neon lights around Detroit and Las Vegas. Skin tones seem true to actor complexion and the movie's tonal temperature.

White Boy Rick Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Beyond some slightly muffled dialogue from time to time, White Boy Rick's DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 lossless soundtrack is very good, if not a bit unassuming and straightforward by design. The track opens wide during the skating party scene in chapter three and a trip to Vegas later on in the film, finding the proper balance of immersive beats and location din to fully draw the listener into the environments. Surrounds engage when a car spins off the road in chapter 11, sending the machine swirling with seamless spin throughout the stage. Gunshots lack extreme depth but pop nicely enough. Solid environmental detailing helps give shape to more generalized sounds and basic scenes, whether a light rumble heard from inside a moving car or minor world details around the Detroit neighborhood where most of the story unfolds. Dialogue is generally clear, clean, and well prioritized and positioned. There are a few moments, notably early on, when surrounding sound elements seem slightly too elevated and compete with dialogue delivery.

White Boy Rick Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

White Boy Rick's Blu-ray release contains a trivia track, deleted scenes, and several featurettes. A Movies Anywhere digital copy code is included with purchase. The release ships with a non-embossed "retro VHS" slipcover, which is apparently the in-thing right now.

• Trivia Track: A pop-up text-based track that runs through the film.
• Deleted Scenes (1080p, 6:50 total runtime): Included are She'll Be Back, Got a Slice for Me?, I Seen You Around, You Don't Know Your Place, I Was Hoping, and Bring Him to Come See Me.
• The Unknown True Story of Rick Wershe Jr. (1080p, 5:35): Cast and crew discuss the true story behind Rick's drug dealing and subsequent incarceration, the Detroit setting, and how the tale translated to film.
• The Making of White Boy Rick (1080p, 5:17): This piece recaps the story and explores the characters, the 1980s setting, shooting in Cleveland, costumes, Yann Demange's direction, and more.
• The Three Tribes of Detroit: The Cast (1080p, 10:14): As the title suggests, this piece explores the collective ensemble and how the players work individually and collectively.
• Previews (1080p): Additional Sony titles.

White Boy Rick Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

White Boy Rick thrives on two terrific lead performances and a seamless transport back in time to its 1980s setting, but the picture otherwise stalls under the weight of a nondescript story without much novelty or real dramatic interest. It's a good film, well worth a watch, but it cannot escape the clutches of narrative mediocrity. Sony's Blu-ray is very good, though, featuring high end 1080p video, a 7.1 lossless soundtrack that capably handles the film's rather unassuming (most of the time) sound design, and a decent array of bonus features. Worth a look.