McConaughey is superb as redneck homophobe transformed into compassionate, alternative health activist

Rating: 9/10 (26 February 2014)

'The Dallas Buyers Club' is the first mainstream film that has the guts to question both the efficacy and legitimacy of Orthodox Medicine's early AIDS medication research as well as highlighting the unhealthy relationship between the researchers, doctors and pharmaceutical companies, who pushed toxic treatments on an unsuspecting public. The man who led the valiant crusade against this nasty coterie of entrenched interests was the unlikely Texas electrician and part-time rodeo cowboy, Ron Woodroof (played brilliantly by Matthew McConaghey), who went from being a redneck homophobe to a tolerant, alternative health activist.
When we're first introduced to Woodroof, he's the epitome of what some may call 'Trailer Trash'. Woodroof pals around with his homophobic buddies, has sex with prostitutes and uses drugs like candy. After sustaining a work-related injury (he's zapped by a faulty electrical current), Woodroof's brought to the hospital to recover. The tests reveal that he's got AIDS and he's told he has 30 days to live. First Woodroof's in denial but remembers that he had unprotected sex with an intravenous drug user. As he researches causes of AIDS in the library, it dawns on him that his drug use in general probably was also a big factor leading to his illness. As we break into Act II, Woodruff's life is upended as he's ostracized by his community and must fend for himself as he seeks a cure.
When AZT first came out, the double blind experiments prevented subjects from knowing whether they were getting the real thing or a placebo. Woodroof is forced to bribe a hospital worker to obtain the drug but after using it for a short time, finds his health getting worse. When his supply at the hospital runs out, it's then that he hears about a doctor in Mexico, Vass, who might have some AZT. It turns out that Dr. Vass was barred from practicing in the US after giving his patients non- approved, alternative medications. It's this Dr. Vass who enlightens Woodroof about the dangers of AZT and how it's completely toxic. He gives him the protein, peptide T, along with some other non-toxic medication and Woodroof finds himself getting better. I'm not sure if the medication did the trick or it simply was the lack of flooding his body with toxic stuff like AZT that stabilized the very ill Woodroof, but whatever the case, this Dr. Vass was on to something.
After his health begins to improve, Woodroof gets the idea that he can make money by importing the alternative AIDS medications and selling them by subscription (Dallas Buyers Club members must pay $400 per month to get the medications); he smuggles them into the US dressed as a priest and claiming they're for his personal use. Earlier, Woodroof met a transsexual diagnosed with AIDS by the name of Rayon (Jared Leto) who he tries to avoid due to his homophobia. But after his own bout with the illness, Woodroof becomes more accepting of Rayon, who becomes his business partner, bringing in new clients from her contacts in the gay community.
'Dallas Buyers Club' is perhaps the first mainstream film that criticizes both allopathic medicine and big Pharma. When Dr. Sevard finds out about the buyer's club, he castigates Woodroof because his efforts are interfering with his AZT trials. It's obvious that in the doctor's view of things, only orthodox medicine has the right to grant access to treatment for AIDS sufferers. Worse is the attitude of the FDA in the form of point man Richard Barkley, who ends up confiscating Woodroof's medications and threatens to have him jailed. Later, Woodroof attempts to challenge the FDA's new rules which make it illegal to dispense alternative medications for AIDS sufferers. While Woodroof loses in Federal Court (the Judge sympathizes but argues that legally, his hands are tied), he emerges as a hero to the gay community along with progressive sympathizers.
Not everyone in the medical community views Woodroof as a demon. Gradually, Dr. Eve Saks comes around to his point of view. She's right however, when Woodroof gets angry over the fact that Rayon was taken to the hospital and given AZT while he was away. Dr. Saks tells Woodroof that ultimately Rayon died from her own drug usage and not from one or two days of AZT treatment. The idea that Woodroof would lash out like that is understandable given the fact that he had just learned of Rayon's death. But ultimately,Woodroof's blaming Rayon's death solely on AZT (especially for the short time she was administered the drug), was irrational.
If there is one sour note in the film, it's in one of the closing credits. We're informed that due to Woodroof's efforts, AZT was modified so that it was less toxic and millions of AIDS sufferers were saved. I hardly believe that Woodroof would have been happy with such a statement. The whole point of the film was that Woodruff was a crusader who fought for alternative medications and he himself lived longer, not because of toxic pharmaceutical products but because he took benign alternative ones--which perhaps gave his body a better chance than the kind of medicines touted by mainstream physicians and their government minions.
In the end, even Woodroof's alternative medications were not enough to prevent him from dying of AIDS. But he lived seven years longer than his initial diagnosis of 30 days. 'Dallas Buyers Club' not only bravely holds up a mirror to a medical establishment that has for too long been given a free pass in regards to increased scrutiny but it's also a perceptive tale of a man who transformed himself from a bigot and self-centered materialist to a compassionate healer with a moral and humanitarian core.