White Boy Rick
Director: Yann Demange
Year Released: 2018
Rating: 1.5
Allegedly, back in the mid 80's, 14-year-old (!) Richard Wershe Jr. (Richie Merritt) was used by the FBI (embodied by Jennifer Jason Leigh and Rory Cochrane) to help bring down a drug-and-guns ring in Michigan - when that case was settled, he started peddling cocaine himself, was arrested and he was given a life sentence. The whole affair is actually bizarre and, if true, a nasty indictment of the Bureau for using a teenager to do their work for them (and then abandoning him) ... but Wershe - and his father Rick Sr. (Matthew McConaughey) - come across as greasy peddlers and not worth even a modicum of respect. It's the same-old-story about idiots getting rich by illicit means and then paying the price for it ... boo hoo. Demange tries to make a broken-down Detroit even uglier and grayer ... and succeeds.
