Since the release of the immensely popular Netflix series Narcos, Hollywood has been very eager to adapt any and all stories involving figures in the 1980s drug trade. Some of them like Barry Seal (American Made) and Pablo Escobar (Narcos, Escobar: Paradise Lost and Loving Pablo) are widely known but every now and then this kind of avalanche leads to films about stories we don’t know quite as well. White Boy Rick is one of those unknown stories.
Richard Wershe Jr. aka White Boy Rick was a white boy from a poor family in a bad neighborhood who managed to become a drug dealer of some notoriety in his native Detroit. Once he got a bit too big for his own good, the FBI decided to make him their youngest informant ever at age 14. As he navigated his way through the underworld he met a number of heavy hitters in the drug trade.
Watching the trailer for White Boy Rick I was reminded of At Close Range which is an adaptation of the real life story of Bruce Johnston Jr. (played by Sean Penn) who was lured into a life of crime by his own father (played by Christopher Walken). After his relationship with his estranged father became strained due to a number of horrible incidents Bruce Jr. eventually testified against his father in court. In the end Bruce Sr. was convicted and sentenced to 6 consecutive life sentences. If White Boy Rick is half the film At Close Range is it will be worth the wait.
White Boy Rick is directed by Yann Demange and stars Matthew McConaughey, Bruce Dern, Bel Howley, and Jennifer Jason Leigh. It will be released in the U.S. on September 14th, 2018 and in the U.K. on December 7th, 2018. For international release dates click here.
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