C+Directed by Yann Demange Starring Richie Merritt, Matthew McConaughey, and Bel Powley Review by Jon Kissel |  |
Yann Demange’s ’71 remains one of the decade’s best action thrillers, but the French director has a difficult time transferring that expertise from Troubles-era Northern Ireland to crack-era Detroit in White Boy Rick. As an adaptation of the life of Rick Wershe Jr (Richie Merritt), the youngest FBI informant ever, White Boy Rick only scratches the surface of its decaying urban environment. The film includes scenes of Rick and his friends getting into teenage hijinks, but because it’s set in Detroit, that means bounding through abandoned factories and stumbling onto rats’ nests. What does that kind of industrial dystopia do to an American living in the middle of the evidence of the lie of the American Dream? For that matter, Rick and his family seem to be the only white people left in Detroit, a detail the film doesn’t examine. Why did the Wershe’s stay when all the other white people left? Is this story only notable because Wershe is white?
Though White Boy Rick comes off as shallow, Demange makes the surface a compelling place to be thanks to the look of the film and an impressive cast. Merritt has the look down even as his dialogue marks him as the first-time actor he is, but he’s supported by the likes of Matthew McConaughey and Bel Powley as his father and sister, both of whom give credible physical performances as working class folks hanging on to what little they have by their fingernails. Jennifer Jason Leigh, Bruce Dern, and Brian Tyree Henry all play integral roles, as does the set designer in the creation of an 80’s roller rink that serves as the local hotspot. No drug story would be complete without violence, and Demange is working in the Jeremy Saulnier vein by showing the messiness of gunplay and its after effects. The total picture is one of chilly grubbiness, as off-putting as the wispy mustache adorning Rick’s upper lip.
As much as White Boy Rick evokes a time and place, Demange is not up to par in crafting a cohesive narrative, especially compared to the freneticism of ’71. The plot gets lost as the film hurtles towards its ending and things happen very quickly, an effect that might be purposefully bewildering to fit with where Rick’s life ends up but mostly serves to muddy events. A late desperate move on Rick’s part forgets his age and status within the broader criminal enterprise, and requires an amount of charisma that Merritt might one day possess, but not yet. If White Boy Rick is going to avoid the big questions its story implicitly poses, it needed to be much tighter in its execution and make the omission worth it. Instead, Demange fails to satisfy both masters with this competent but frustrating outing. C+
As much as White Boy Rick evokes a time and place, Demange is not up to par in crafting a cohesive narrative, especially compared to the freneticism of ’71. The plot gets lost as the film hurtles towards its ending and things happen very quickly, an effect that might be purposefully bewildering to fit with where Rick’s life ends up but mostly serves to muddy events. A late desperate move on Rick’s part forgets his age and status within the broader criminal enterprise, and requires an amount of charisma that Merritt might one day possess, but not yet. If White Boy Rick is going to avoid the big questions its story implicitly poses, it needed to be much tighter in its execution and make the omission worth it. Instead, Demange fails to satisfy both masters with this competent but frustrating outing. C+
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