Witness the rise of America’s youngest hustler, dealer, kingpin, informant, legend.
Not currently showing on the local cinema circuit.
| Cast |
Matthew McConaughey, Richie Merritt, Bel Powley, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Brian Tyree Henry, Rory Cochrane, RJ Cyler, Jonathan Majors |
| Director |
Yann Demange |
| Screenplay | Andy Weiss, Logan Miller, Noah Miller |
| Music | Max Richter |
| Cinematography | Tat Radcliffe |
| Editing | Chris Wyatt |
| Soundtrack | Available |
| Made in | 2018 |
| Produced by | LBI Productions, Protozoa Pictures, Studio 8 |
IMDB page | ScreenIt Report | CommonSenseMedia Report
Scroll down for embedded trailer
| Genre | Drama |
| Language | Strong impact frequent crude language used in expressions, swearing and conversations between characters. |
| Nudity | Low impact infrequent nudity in a non sexual context. |
| Sex | None |
| Violence | Fairly frequent moderate impact realistic violence, with some iinstances of blood letting necessary for the narrative. |
| Prejudice | None |
| Blasphemy | None |
| Drug abuse | None (sic) |
| Comments | The material contains complex and mature themes with a strong sense of threat and menace. It explores themes of a dysfunctional family, single parenthood, dealing with gangsterism, drug and gun dealings, being betrayed by a law enforcement, organised crime and crime investigation. Themes that deal with gangsterism, gun and drug dealing which seem to be profitable may morally mislead cognitively immature impressionable viewers as they misinterpret the context of the storyline and think that the ‘glamorised’ crime is profitable, although some people were arrested in the end. Furthermore drug dealings and innocent victims being shot may be upsetting, distressing and distressing for younger viewers. |
| These details are supplied by the FPB. If you have a problem with any of the above, please take it up directly with the FPB. Read the Classification Guidelines. | |
| R: Restricted | Rated R for language throughout, drug content, violence, some sexual references, and brief nudity |
| Runtime | 111 |
| USA version is usually but not always the same as South African release. Versions released on streaming or DVD, Blu-ray or Video may also differ. | |
Sex / Nudity |
Violence |
Blood / Gore / Gross |
Guns / Weapons |
Profanity |
Alcohol / Drugs |
Smoking |
Disrespectful / Bad Attitude |
Imitative Behaviour |
| Frightening / Tense Scenes |
Jump Scenes |
Tense Family Scenes |
| Music (Scary/Tense) |
Music (Inappropriate) |
Topics to talk about |
| Suggested age limit 17 + |
Positive messages |
Positive role models |
| Violence |
Sex |
Language |
Consumerism |
Drinking, drugs, smoking |
| Scale (Max) | 20 |  |
What the Critics say | ||
| 24.com Ilan Preskovsky  Sadly, and there’s no getting around this, the actual plot here is a total snooze. Yes, the one about the teenage FBI informant and drug dealer. I suppose there are hints of interest in the way our hero is a white kid who acts like he belongs to the black community around him but who, because of the colour of his skin, is far less likely than his neighbours to have his life ruined by a justice system that picks and chooses how it punishes people of different races for the same crime – not to mention the irony of how it all plays out – but most of the plot-heavy parts of the film adds up to little more than a badly paced, utterly unexciting and entirely uninteresting collection of crime movie clichés. | 10 |  |
| ScreenIt T. Durgin The real-life story is certainly one to research and read up on online. So, the film also does its job in getting you to show interest in Ricky’s tragic case. But I wanted to be more than interested. I wanted to be moved, compelled, even angered. I just wasn’t. | 9 | |
| Metacritic.com 35 critics | 12 |  |
| Rottentomatoes critics 136 critics | 12 | |
| Rottentomatoes tomatometer Tomatometer Solid work from the cast - particularly a scene-stealing Matthew McConaughey - helps White Boy Rick make up for a number of missed opportunities in the script. | 12 | |
| Movie Review Query Engine MRQE critics   | 12 | |
| CommonSenseMedia Jeffrey M. Anderson Gritty, violent biopic about a young drug dealer's downfall. | 5 |  |
What the People say | ||
| Metacritic.com users 27 users | 13 | |
| Rottentomatoes users 1382 users | 12 | |
| IMDB 11695 Netizens | 13 | |
| The Movie DB Community | 12 | |
| Rottentomatoes popcornmeter Popcornmeter | 11 | |
Average .. 55% | 11 | |