Dallas Buyers Club

Samir Mehta: “It was ok.”

After seeing two award wins for this movie, I went in expecting a LOT. It wasn't a bad movie, but it reminds me more of the Iron Lady than Milk. That is, it's a decent biopic about a great subject that isn't told in a particularly compelling way. (Though it was nowhere near as bad and boring as Iron Lady got.) Ultimately it feels very "workmanlike" with fairly little advanced insight into the AIDS crisis other than... it was bad and hard and pharmaceutical companies and the FDA weren't super responsive. Not really earth shattering.

Matthew Mc is very good, but nowhere as good as Chiwetel was. And although Leto was fine, he was just... fine. This was not a memorable performance much less a great one. I'm convinced that if he didn't have the heart throb/musician backstory, his nominiation wouldn't have happened. He had no business beating his competitors. As to the outcry from the LBGT community about his performance - I can't say this was a cartoonish performance, but it was also not a particuarly nuanced or astute one.

− March 4, 2014 • more by Samir • log in or create an account to reply