White Boy Rick

Detroit, 1984. Rick Wershe Sr sells guns out the back door and brings his son Ricky into it. FBI agents notice the boy and, in exchange for leaving his father alone, turn fourteen-year-old Ricky into an informant. He becomes the youngest informant in the Bureau's history, then goes deep into the crack trade, and the government that used him turns its back once he is no longer needed. Yann Demange directed. Matthew McConaughey plays the father and Richie Merritt, in his first film, plays Ricky, with Bel Powley, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Brian Tyree Henry in the cast. It contains Piper Laurie's final screen role. The closing text is the heaviest part. Wershe served more than thirty years, the longest sentence given in Michigan for a non-violent offence. He was paroled in 2017. His father had died in 2014. Against a 29 million dollar budget it took 26 million domestically. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 56 percent and Metacritic at 59; the reviews were mixed. Who it is for: viewers interested in true crime and in eighties Detroit. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a clear villain. The film describes a state using up a child and then discarding him, without ever turning that into anger, and its tone stays flat throughout.