4/5
Dallas Buyers Club is a truly phenomenal piece of filmmaking and a truly remarkable work of art. It sets its story in the early AIDS epidemic, when AIDS was stigmatized as a "gay disease" and effective therapy was just starting to hit clinical trials. Matthew McConaughey plays a young homophobic man whose life is turned upside down when he finds out he may die in a month from AIDS. Unable to take part in an AZT trial and concerned that the drug itself may make patients sicker, he goes on a quest to bring non-FDA-approved drugs across the border into the US to sell to people who have no other options. Surprisingly, the medicine feels accurate and true in a way most movies get wrong, from simple turns of phrase to minor background details. And although the specific details of the story are dated, the FDA approval process feels just as frustrating now as it must have been then.
The movie is filled with tour de force performances from McConaughey and Leto. They embody evocative and tender portraits of imperfect humans doing the best they can in an unfair world. It is heartbreaking watching their trials and tribulations, their successes and failures, their joys and their miseries. They give unforgettable (Oscar-winning) performances. The directing undeniably places artistic tendencies first, treating every shot and scene as creative canvases instead of necessary storytelling elements. It has the occasional misstep and hollow ring to it, even bordering on the melodramatic from time to time, but it's so good that it's easy to forget its imperfections. Dallas Buyers Club is a fantastic film
IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0790636/