Rick Wershe Jr's claim to fame, or infamy if you prefer, was that at fourteen he was the youngest ever FBI informant before becoming a kingpin drug dealer at sixteen. Yann Demange's (he made "'71"), film "White Boy Rick" is a 'Serpico'-like account of how Rick got into this and it makes for surprisingly sobering viewing. It didn't help that his dad, (an absolutely terrific Matthew McConaughey), was a low-life gun dealer and his sister, (Bel Powley, brilliant), a junkie. You might say that with a family like this, a life of crime was inevitable.
It's a tragic story that Demange never exploits and if it isn't quite in the same class as "'71" it may be because this is material we've seen too often in the past. In the title role newcomer Richie Merritt is excellent and the film looks terrific, (Tat Radcliffe was the cinematographer), moving nicely from Hollywood crime movie gloss to documentary realism often in the same scene. In the end, this is a grim, downbeat little movie but it's hard-to-believe true story is one worth telling and Demange tells it very well indeed.
