‘Do the hustle’

‘White Boy Rick’ enters the American crime film cannon to mixed results

Is there anything more American than the American crime story? These narratives present the American dream of wealth, power, and success as attainable to the working class only through good old-fashioned hustling. It’s about the willingness to get one’s hands dirty to make a little scratch. We love films like “Goodfellas,” “American Hustle,” and “Scarface” because we love to see the downtrodden and marginalized get one over on the institutions designed to make them struggle.

“White Boy Rick” is the true-life tale of Richard Wershe Jr. who, at the ripe old age of 15, is recruited by the FBI as an undercover informant during the heyday of the 1980s drug epidemic in Detroit. When the FBI no longer needs him, Wershe quickly establishes himself as a major player in the Detroit drug trade before ultimately getting life for possession—all before turning 17 years old. It’s a story so implausible you’d think it was Hollywood fiction, if it weren’t for the fact that it’s all true.

While the highly ambitious film never reaches its full potential, the performances by the cast more than make up for it. “White Boy Rick” leans heavily on Matthew McConaughey, who brings a dignified pitifulness to Richard, Rick’s street-hustling father with ambitions of going legit by getting in early on the VHS rental business.

McConaughey is dependably solid, but the film’s breakout performance comes from newcomer Richie Merritt. Plucked out of obscurity for this role, Merritt confidently vacillates between an authentic, street-savvy hustler and a vulnerable teen barely treading water.

Clocking in at nearly two hours, the film drags a bit when it devotes too much time to Dawn, Rick’s drug-addled sister played by Bel Powley. While Powley portrays Dawn with a tragic fragility, her purpose is really only to show you how terrible the drug epidemic is. It’s easily the weakest link in a movie that feels simultaneously slight and overstuffed.

“White Boy Rick” strives to belong in the same conversation as such American crime classics as “Goodfellas” or “The Public Enemy”—films that celebrate the tenacity and can-do spirit of the hustler, the blue-collar criminal, and the gangster, while also showing the very real consequences of a life defined by drugs and crime. And in true American fashion, no matter how successful you become, no matter how much power you accrue, there’s always some institution waiting around the corner, ready to bust the door down and leave you empty handed.