Everyone agrees it’s one 2013’s outstanding films. On Rotten
Tomato’s site, a spectacular 42 of 42 reviewers approve. Matthew
McConaughey delivers an Oscar-winning performance as a homophobic Texas good-old-boy who learns
that he has AIDS in 1985.
Defying his doctor, who announces that he has thirty days to
live and that no treatment exists, he pulls himself together, searches for treatments
in places beyond the influence of the medical establishment (Mexico, for
instance), smuggles them into the USA, and distributes them to AIDS victims
despite government persecution.
Although I recommend The Dallas Buyer’s Club, I left halfway
through. I couldn’t bear it because it contains every dumb Hollywood
cliché about physicians and science.
Every doctor is a jerk except (a) the beautiful young woman
doctor who finds Matthew McConaughey cool and (b) the seedy, unshaven doctor
whom McConaughey stumbles upon running a Mexican clinic. After announcing that
he has lost his US
license (undoubtedly for being too compassionate), this doctor explains that
his regimen of vitamins and immune boosters will help.
I am not one of those tiresome people who insist that movies
stick to facts. History is boring and complicated. American movies must tell a
coherent story with an upbeat ending and an admirable hero (Matthew McConaughey
has flaws, but they are cute flaws: he is oversexed, a spendthrift, rude, and
he lies – but only to bad people).
At that time, a hundred Mexican clinics sold AIDS
treatments. None worked. Everyone who took them died. No American audience
would accept Matthew McConaughey passing out fake drugs, so the screenwriters
tweak the historical facts. In the movie, the drugs work.
I’m puzzled why conservatives denounce Hollywood for turning out liberal propaganda.
The Dallas Buyer’s Club is a Tea Party dream. The government is a heartless
oppressor. That includes the FDA which the writers confuse with the FBI
because they create a menacing agent who threatens to arrest
Matthew McConaughey. This FBI… I mean FDA agent never says “Your drugs don’t
work!” He says “Your drugs are not FDA approved!” which, since he’s a villain,
means they do work.
Let me know how it turns out.
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