Movie review: Dallas Buyer Club (R16)

Matthew McConaughey plays homophobic, hard-partying Ron Woodroof in Dallas Buyers Club.

It's unclear what hard-partying Texan cowboy Ron Woodroof is more upset about when he is diagnosed with HIV - the doctor's prognosis that he has only 30 days to live or the revelation he has contracted the "gay disease".

After declaring he is straight and menacing the doctor who breaks the news, he swaggers out the the hospital proclaiming "nothing can kill Ron Woodroof in 30 days".

This scene from the Dallas Buyers Club tells you all you need to know about Woodroof. He is stridently homophobic, he bristles with self-belief and he hates authority.

Matthew McConaughey, who lost 18kg to play Woodroof, is almost unrecognisable in the role. Even at the start of the film, before Woodroof contracts the disease during a fling with two rodeo groupies, he is disturbingly thin. As the film progresses his face becomes pale and gaunt and dark circles line his eyes.

It's clear something is seriously wrong, but Woodroof is too caught up in his hard-partying lifestyle of booze and drugs to notice it.

This realisation only comes after he collapses in his trailer. Woodroof, who lives for seven years following the initial prognosis, beats the odds by doing what he does best: hustling.

He pays a staff member at the hospital to steal the drugs he needs to stay alive before heading to Mexico for more medication.

To fund his own treatment he sets up a centre, the Dallas Buyers Club, for non-approved treatments for HIV- positive patients.

Soon hundreds of people are lining up outside his door.

Over time his homophobic views dissipate as his old friends desert him. He also becomes an unlikely champion for the rights of people who have contracted the disease and takes the US Food and Drug Administration to court over its restrictive practices.

The Dallas Buyers Club is a favourite for the Oscars and it is easy to see why. Besides the strength of McConaughey's performance, the film succeeds because it finds humour in the darkest of places.

Watch the trailer here: