Mark Acosta
Editor in Chief
“White Boy Rick” is a larger-than-life narrative of Richard Wershe Jr, who grew to be one of the biggest distributors of cocaine in Michigan as a teenager in the 1980s.
The Detroit Free Press referred to him as a “cocaine kingpin.” The true story of Wershe is both heart-breaking and honest.
Rick, played by Richie Merritt, is a teen drug dealer who gets caught up in selling his father’s AK-47s, equipped with homemade suppressors, to make extra money.
His father, also named Rick, played by Matthew McConaughey, is a licensed weapons dealer who is anything but law-abiding.
Coming from a rough life, his mother left their family and his dad is left struggling to support them by illegally supplying guns to local gangs and drug dealers.
All the while his sister Dawn, played by Bel Powley, is a drug addict and runs away with her good-for-nothing boyfriend while blaming her father for all of the family’s misfortune.
By age 15, the FBI caught on to Rick selling his father’s guns and they decide to use him to buy drugs from the local drug houses.
Rick does this to keep his father and himself out of jail, but leaves the FBI and is no longer willing to help them due to the risk it has on his life.
Once he leaves, Rick starts to sell cocaine to keep his family together; seeing this as the only real way out of their struggle.
The life is dangerous, but Rick makes money and friends who run the local drug houses. This is when Rick earns his reputation as kingpin.
His drug life is filled with partying, women and corruption. During his time in Detroit, the local police department and government are filled with corruption.
The tale of Rick is honest. The director, Yann Demange, does not try to paint a perfect picture for Rick. The house he lives in is run-down, and even when Rick’s life is at its best it is never made to seem desirable.
When Rick is 17, he gets caught up with the same FBI agents who he worked for at 15.
They take him in and before you know it, Rick is sitting behind bars serving a life sentence. “White Boy Rick” portrays the reality of how harshly drug offenses are treated in America.
The movie was entertaining, but there could have been some details switched around that would have made the movie flow easier.
For one, you do not find out until the end of the movie that Rick was sitting in prison for nearly 30 years.
If the director would have put that to start, the movie would have been even better.
You could see that he was in trouble, and the story would have unfolded with the details.
Mark Acosta can be reached at mark.acosta@laverne.edu.
