White Boy Rick
Directed by Yann Demange
- crime
- drama
The story
The story of Richard Wershe Jr., a teenager who became an undercover informant for the police during the 1980s, and was ultimately arrested for drug trafficking and sentenced to life in prison.
What it’s like
Grimy 1980s Detroit rendered in washed-out, sodium-orange and fluorescent-green tones, with handheld camera work that stays close to faces and cramped rooms, and a score built from brooding synth pulses and period soul tracks that let silence hang between scenes. Its vibe is bleak and anxious, a slow-burn unease with flashes of hard, sudden violence and a steady undercurrent of danger; expect gunfire, drug-deal brutality and some profanity, but little gore. The rhythm is unhurried in the domestic scenes and jittery during the street-level deals, and the emotional register stays tense and melancholic: a teenage boy in a rotting family and a corrupt system gradually losing his footing, his loyalty and his youth. It suits a late-night watch when you want something gritty and morally heavy rather than comforting, and it's for viewers drawn to true-crime dramas, dirty-city textures and stories about people crushed between institutions and the streets.
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