DATE REVIEWED: 10/25/25
TITLE: Dallas Buyers Club
BOX OFFICE RATED: R (This is not suitable for God’s children.)
PRODUCTION YEAR: 2013 Universal Pictures Focus Features / Truth Entertainment / Voltage Pictures / R2 Films / Evolution Independent
RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1
REASON: This movie was inspired by true events and takes place in Texas in 1985. It began with cowboy Ron Woodroof having sex with a female behind the gate near the rodeo arena as a cowboy fell off his horse and lay motionless in the dirt. Ron swindled money from the men in the back and told them that Rock Hudson was gay according to the newspaper as Ron coughed, smoked and drank hard alcohol. After Ron’s friend did poorly in the bull ride, the cowboys chased Ron outside because Ron had bet their combined $650 on his friend winning. Ron asked his friend Tucker, a Dallas police officer, to arrest him in order to get away from the angry men. Officer Tucker refused, so Ron punched the cop in the face so Tucker did the same and gave Ron a bloody face. Tucker then handcuffed Ron and threatened to arrest the other men if they interfered. Tucker dropped Ron off in his police car at Ron’s mobile home instead of taking him to jail, and told Ron to get his life together. Ron believed that Tucker’s dad was disappointed in Tucker for being a cop. Ron went inside his house and passed out on the floor, and he woke up hours later and drank more alcohol. The next day, Ron and his coworkers, TJ and Clint hung out smoking dope at the oil drill place they worked. Clint wanted to work in Saudi Arabia because it paid much better than an American job even though it was a Muslim country and you couldn’t have sex with the women there. Ron wasn’t interested because he was a sex addict. Ron was called away from his buddies in order to check on an injured Hispanic man whose leg was caught in the drill. The foreman didn’t want to call an ambulance because he would get in trouble for hiring an illegal, but Ron insisted that he make the call and get the bloodied man some medical help. Ron was an electrician, and under the influence, and tried to turn off the power at the worksite, but sparks flew in his eyes and he ended up in the Dallas Mercy hospital. Dr. David Sevard and Dr. Eve Saks visited Ron in his room wearing masks and gloves and informed Ron that his blood work came back and Ron tested positive for the HIV/AIDS virus. Ron swore up a storm and told the doctors that he didn’t engage in homosexual activitybut wouldn’t say whether or not he used drugs. The doctors gave Ron some pamphlets to read about the disease and explained that his condition was serious and he had 30 days to live. However, Ron threw the papers back at them and left insisting that he wouldn’t die. Ron continued snorting drugs and having threesomes with multiple women, who were still getting dressed as his buddy TJ came into the house. He and Ron drank heavily together, and Ron explained about his HIV diagnosis and believed that the doctors mixed up his bloodwork with someone who had AIDS. TJ told about the time the doctor diagnosed him with chlamydia but he discovered that he had crabs when he went home. The two females left with TJwhile Ron stayed home and rested. Ron later visited the library and read up on AIDS in Time Magazine. Meanwhile at Dallas Mercy, Avonex Industries spokesman Rick Ferris pitched a test study for the reintroduced AZT drug, which failed previously as a treatment for cancer in humans because the dosage was inaccurate. They received FDA approvalto skip more animal testing and test the drug on patients at Dallas Mercy for the treatment of HIV. The doctors would be highly compensated for their efforts in testing the drug. Dr Eve was concerned about the ethics of the big drug pharmas giving huge bonuses to the doctors to push a questionable drug onto dying people when they couldn’t confirm that it treated the deadly disease. At the library, Ron discovered that drugs and unprotected sex were also causes of HIV, not just gay sex. He had flashbacks of all the times he had unprotected sex with women who had sores on their arms from using drugs and needles. Ron continued coughing uncontrollably and then screamed the f-word in the library when he realized that the doctors were right. He went to the hospital to see Dr. Sevard, but he was out so Ron made a scene and swore at Dr. Eve that he didn’t want her nursing advice. Dr. Eve swore back that she was a doctor and told Ron to come to her office. Ron told Dr. Eve that Avonex just released AZT for testing and he wanted to participate in the trial, but Dr. Eve informed Ron that he couldn’t buy AZT. She explained that the trial lasted a year and the test subjects were picked randomly. Half of them got AZT and the other half got sugar pills, and the doctors didn’t know who got what. Ron offered cash to buy the AZT but learned that it was unavailable until it was proven to be a cure for AIDS if ever by the FDA. Ron then asked about the Dextran Sulfate in Germany, the DDC in France and the AL721 in Israel, and Dr. Eve argued that the FDA didn’t approve those drugs in the US. She told Ron to meet with a support group at Draddy Auditorium to talk about his feelings, but Ron argued that he was dying and needed medical attention. Ron got some hard drinks from the bartender Neddie Jay and sat with his usual group of friends. Ron threw his lit cigarette at Clint and attacked him when he called Ron a faggot, and then Ron spit on Clint and TJ. He left f-ing everyone at the bar that backed away from him on his way out. Ron went to an Avonex meeting where Rick was speaking. Ron was immediately hit on by a gay man but told the man to go away, and then Ron left with a handful of brochures. Ron went to a strip club and swore at God asking for a sign if he had any chance to live because he was at his wits’ end. The female stripper danced in front of Ron. Ron recognized the hospital janitor sitting at the bar and spoke with him. Another day, at the hospital, the janitor left a bag of AZT in the dumpster out back as Ron hid nearby waiting. He retrieved the drugs after the janitor left and went home, where he took the pills with beer and then snorted cocaine. Ron went to work the next day but was bullied into leaving by TJ and Clint before he got out of his car. In the days that followed, Ron washed the pills down with alcohol whenever he felt like it. He collected more AZT from the hospital dumpster that the janitor left for him, frequented the strip club and continued to heavily use drugs and alcohol. On day 28, Ron met up with the janitor behind the Dallas Mercy hospital and gave him cash to pay for the drugs. The Hispanic worker explained that the AZT was now locked up and he couldn’t any more for Ron, but he wrote down the number of Dr. Vass in Mexico where Ron could get the drugs. Ron took a swing at the janitor but missed and collapsed. He woke up inside the hospital in a hospital bed, where Dr. Eve told him that he had a blood transfusion and almost died. Dr. Sevard questioned where Ron got the AZT that they found in his blood, and he denied knowing anything about it so Sevard reminded him that it was illegal to deal pharmaceutical drugs. The doctors left the room and Ron met his roommate Rayon, a transgender man with AIDs. When Ron found out Rayon had cash, the two played cards and Ron lost. Rayon was there for the AZT trial and his friend paid him $5,000 to split the drugs. Rayon refused to split his AZT dosage in threes to share with Ron. Ron walked out of the hospital telling Dr. Eve that he wouldn’t stay there to die. When Ron returned to the trailer park, he found the words, “Faggot blood” spray-painted on his mobile home and an eviction notice on the locked door. He used his shotgun to blow open the door, collected all the cash he had stashed around and then drove off to Mexico on day 29. He pulled over on the side of the road and broke down in tears and considered suicide with his handgun. Ron later arrived in Mexico on day 30 and went to the hospital to see Dr. Vass, who informed Ron that AZT was poison and they had none. The doctor’s license was revoked three years ago so he practiced medicine in Mexico. Dr. Vass assigned Ron to one of the vacant cots and reviewed all the narcotics in Ron’s system. Dr. Vass explained that the cocaine was breaking down Ron’s immune system and making him susceptible to infection, and the AZT was not a cure for HIV and was killing all the cells it came in contact with. Dr. Vass prescribed vitamins, zinc, aloe and fatty acids to build up Ron’s immune system. Back at Dallas Mercy, Eve took her mask off and talked with Rayon about him skipping his AZT appointment. They intimately held onto each other as she gave him tips on his plunging neckline so he could attract Dr. Marcus. Three months later, Dr. Vass informed Ron that his T-cells were improving, but he would always have HIV and now had chronic pneumonia because of all the drugs and alcohol he used that wore down his immune system. Dr. Vass gave Ron some DDC, which was less toxic then AZT, as well as Peptide T, a non-toxic protein that Ron had been given since he arrived in Mexico, but which couldn’t be purchased in the US. Ron took a look around and said there was a New World Order going around in the Mexican hospital with the homos, chinks, herbs and hot nurses. Ron told Dr. Vass that he could make a fortune off from his drugs, so they loaded up Ron’s car with the illegal drugs that Ron planned to sell in the US. Dr. Vass advised Ron not to tell anyone he had AIDs if he got caught because they wouldn’t let him back into the country. Ron donned a Catholic priest robe and drove to the border, where he lied that he had nothing to declare but he was detained anyway. Richard Barkley, an FDA agent, visited Ron and pointed out that he had 3,000 pills but was only allowed a 90-day supply. Ron lied that he had cancer and took 33 pills a day, so that was his 90-day supply of vitamins and other drugs that weren’t approved in the US. Barkley threatened to put Ron in jail for a long time if he sold any of the drugs, and Ron swore to God that he would take all the medicine himself. Ron convinced Barkley with his fake religious words that Ron didn’t believe in and then returned to Texas. Ron soon sold the drugs on the streets and at Avonex meetings. A Dallas Mercy nurse told Dr. Eve that Avonex was falsely claiming that the AZT drug was curing people even though some were getting worse. Dr. Eve told Dr. Sevard that AZT was making people’s white blood cell counts drop and wanted a copy of the study, but Sevard said it wasn’t available because it was still being written. Rayon was out of the hospital and snuck up Ron in his car as he counted the cash from his drug sales. Rayon threw around enough money for 20 people but then decided not to spend the cash on Ron’s drugs and left calling him a homophobe. Ron followed Rayon and agreed to do a deal giving Rayon 25% of the profits if he found 20 more people in addition to the original 20. Ron gave the drugs to Rayon as needed and transgender Rayon sold them to his customers. Rayon brought Ron to the gay bar to sell more drugs, and on his way out Ron saw a poster for a drag queen pageant held every Wednesday. Ron checked into a motel where he hung female porn pictures on the walls. Ron got his partner in crime Rayon a room next door and had his lawyer David Wayne look over the paperwork for the business that he started called the Dallas Buyers’ Club. The Dallas Buyer’s Club sold memberships for $400 a month that included free unlimited drugs. Ron’s inspiration was a group of gays in New York who had a similar idea. Dr. Eve heard on the news that AZT was the first drug approved to treat AIDS and it cost $10,000 per patient, per year. Avonex stocks rose by 12% as a result. Two months later, a gay couple named Michael and Ian visited Rayon. Rayon told Ronnie they needed drugs. Ron wasn’t pleased with the Ronnie nickname and threatened to shoot Rayon’s male body parts off with his gun to make Rayon female like the transgender male wanted. Ron told the two men that they had to sign a waiver accepting that Ron wasn’t responsible if they died after taking his drugs. Ron advised Michael and Ian to stop using the AZT because it did more harm than good and the two men signed with Ron. As Ron was on the phone with Mr. Yamata trying to buy drugs, Dr. Eve showed up at the motel room because the nurse gave her Rayon’s new address and she hadn’t heard from him in a while. Dr. Eve couldn’t believe Ron was still alive and discovered that he had her patients’ medical files. She left a message with Ron for Rayon and told Ron that she was advising her patients to stay away from him because he wasn’t a doctor, even though Dr. Eve and the other doctors were getting huge bonuses for pushing the AZT poison on her patients. Ron and Rayon went shopping for health food at a grocery store and ran into TJ.Ron tried to introduce the strangers, but TJ wouldn’t shake Rayon’s hand because he had called Rayon a faggot moments before. Ron put TJ in a headlock and forced him to shake Rayon’s hand, and TJ did but wiped his hand after. Ron let TJ loose and told him to go back to his miserable life as though TJ was lower class and more mentally unstable than the transgender. There was a long line waiting outside Ron’s door for drugs when he returned to the motel. One young man only had $50 dollars, so Ron told everyone that it wasn’t a charity and they had to pay $400 for the membership if they wanted the drugs. Rayon packed traveling bags for Ron and the transgender high on drugs brought the luggage to him. Ron told Rayon to get his crap together otherwise he would be thrown out on the curb with his 25%. Ron put Denise in charge before he left for the airport. Ron arrived at the Hayashira Chemical Lab in Okayama, Japan, to pick up the order that he had placed for Interferon. However, a lab worker informed Ron that they couldn’t export the drug to the US anymore. Ron tried to bribe the worker with a suitcase full of money, but he wouldn’t accept it and explained that only Japanese doctors could buy the drug. Ron bought the interferon from Dr. Hiroshi before he left Japan. Ron donned a suit and returned to the US with the drugs. He pretended to be on a cell phone call with another doctor as he approached the customs agent at the Dallas International Airport. Security let Ron through when he explained that he was doing medical research in Japan. However, Ron had a medical emergency and went to the bathroom. Ron shot himself with the Japanese drug and passed out. He ended up at Dallas Mercy, where Officer Tucker and another officer were called in to investigate the drugs found inside the briefcase in the airport bathroom. Tucker realized that it was his friend Ron, and he and Dr. Sevard went to Ron’s hospital room. Ron demanded to know what was in his IV, and Sevard admitted that it was AZT. Ron ripped it out of his arm and told Sevard that he would sue the hospital for attempted murder, and Sevard argued that the Japanese drug gave Ron a heart attack. Officer Tucker laughed when Ron went off on Dr. Sevard and FDA agent Barkley how he was given 30 days to live with Dr. Sevard’s diagnosis but he was still alive a year later. Barkley threatened to shut Ron down, and Ron told Dr. Sevard that Eve was his doctor and then checked himself out with Rayon. Dr. Sevard visited Dr. Eve and she couldn’t give the other doctor any information about Ron because it was patient confidentiality and Dr. Eve lied that she didn’t know what Ron did in private outside the hospital. Dr. Sevard explained that the FDA confiscated 2,000 dosages of the interferon drug that Ron had planned to sell to their AIDS patients. He ordered Eve to keep her patients away from the Dallas Buyers’ Club because it was interfering with the Avonex trial study, even though she said they were successfully eliminating their symptoms with Ron’s drugs. Ron learned on the phone that he couldn’t get any Japanese drugs because the FDA made up their own law that the drugs couldn’t be brought into the country. Ron planned to travel to find new foreign drugs, so he took American Airlines to Israel to buy drugs and then did the same in China and Amsterdam. Ron returned to Texas, where he was again visited by Dr. Eve. Ron explained that if he didn’t trust the doctor he bought the drugs from, he would have them sent FedEx to his lab in Seattle to be tested there and then Ron would test the illegal drugs on himself before he sold them to anybody. Transgender male Rayon and his AIDS-stricken male lover Sunflower distracted Ron and Dr. Eve, so he told them to leave and take their Boy George/Marc Bolan pictures with them that they hung on the wall beside his naked female pictures. Ron informed Dr. Eve that AZT didn’t treat people’s symptoms and he was living proof of it because his medication was better than the doctors’. Dr. Sevard wasn’t pleased to find that all of his trial patients disappeared and went to see Ron. Ron asked Denise about one of the girls who showed up at the motel for treatment and learned that she had full blown AIDS, so Ron immediately took her into the bathroom and the two had sex. Ron later found Rayon on the floor trying to stick himself with a drug needle in his private areas, but he couldn’t so Ron helped him. Ron’s attorney David showed up in the room and informed Ron that the IRS was auditing his business. Ron tried to pay them off with thousands in cash, but the agents confiscated his drugs and left. The news reported about the protestorsin Washington acting out against the lack of support they were getting for the AIDS virus. Ron took Dr. Eve out to a fancy dinner and gave her an actual flower picture that his mom painted instead of real flowers, which impressed her. Ron paid for everything, including Cabernet, and asked Eve for information on Dr. Sevard, who ratted him out to the IRS. Eve realized that Ron didn’t want to keep the painting because he would die soon and he wanted someone to appreciate what he tried to do while he was still alive and the painting would remind Dr. Eve of that. The next day, Officer Tucker, Barkley and the DEA showed up at Ron’s place with a court order to confiscate all the non-FDA approved drugs and the aloe vera that was his whole inventory. Barkley advised Ron to go through the process and fill out the FDA paperwork to have the drugs tested so they could be approved, but Ron knew it would take time and money he didn’t have. Barkley informed Ron that he would be fined greatly for improperly labeling and selling his drugs. Ron called David and ordered him to file a restraining order against the FDA and the government because they were taking him down like Al Capone using the IRS. In March of 1987, Dr. Frank Young announced on the news that the FDA’s regulations changed and all medication had to be prescribed by licensed doctors. Ron’s business was now illegal, but he continued to make illegal drug transactions stashing cash and drugs in honky-tonky bathrooms. Ron made more calls and wanted to get help from Amsterdam and Canada. Ron and Rayon were having financial problems and had their credit cards maxed out, so they planned to get more memberships by searching the therapy groups for new customers. Ron sent Officer Tucker some drugs in the mail to help Tucker’s dad with his Alzheimer’s. Michael and Ian showed Ron a dumpy house that he could operate his business out of and live in, and the gay men told Ron it was free for his use because they wanted to help. Ron spoke to a group of potential customers, as Rayon snorted cocaine surrounding the event. Rayon dressed up in a male’s business suit and visited his bigwig dad, a rich businessman, at his professional workplace. Rayon confessed to his dad that he had AIDS and needed help to repay Ron who was kind to him when nobody else was, including his parents. Transgender Rayon then went back to his motel home and told God that he would be a beautiful angel wearing a dress when he met God. Ron called around, but no doctor would write him prescriptions for more drugs. Rayon visited Ron and gave him a huge wad of cash, and he thought Rayon prostituted himself to get it. Rayon said that he sold his life insurance policy, and then he and Ron hugged it out. Ron went to the hospital in a big sombrero hat and asked Dr. Eve to write him drug prescriptions in case he needed them when he came back across the border from Mexico. She explained that she couldn’t because the hospital could lose it license and be sued if she did. While Ron was in Mexico, Rayon and Sunflower hung out in their room, and Rayon started coughing up blood and didn’t want to go to the hospital but Sunflower insisted. Once in Mexico, Ron visited Dr. Vass and learned that the secretions caterpillars used during their incubation period could be used as a non-toxic anti-viral in humans. Ron learned that the Lancet study results in France proved that AZT was too toxic for humans at the levels the patients were receiving and it didn’t cure anything. Avonex and NIH never included that study in their press releases. Dr. Vass gave Ron a load of the anti-fungal drug Fluconazole, among other drugs.That night, Ron went to the room where thousands of butterflies were being kept and they landed on him. Dr. Eve arrived at Rayon’s bedside and confirmed with the nurse that he was now on morphine only. On the flight back from Mexico and when it was about to land at DFW airport, Ron accounted for the smuggled drugs he was bringing into the country by writing out fake prescriptions and forging Dr. Eve’s signature using the pad that he stole from Eve’s desk when he put his sombrero on her head to distract her at the hospital. Ron was held up and an airport official called him out for using the names of Dallas Cowboys players on the prescriptions he wrote. Ron checked in with Denise, and she gave him the emergency messages and informed him that Rayon was at the hospital. Ron rushed off to the hospital and learned that Rayon had died as Sunflower packed up his things. Security was called when Ron stormed into the waiting room full of kids to confront Dr. Sevard and Dr. Eve. Ron grabbed Dr. Sevard and called him a murderer and told everyone not to trust the phony doctor before Ron was taken away by security. Ron then went to the strip club, where a female tried to have sex with him but he refused and broke down in tears. When Ron returned to his free house, some people from Austin had no money to pay for the drugs so Ron told Denise to the sell the car to help restore their petty cash and give the people free medicine. Dr. Eve went to see Ron, and he told her a long list of side effects that AZT caused. She called him out for stealing her prescription pad and informed him that Rayon wasn’t given AZT at the hospital and he died from the disease and his drug addiction. Eve said that Rayon was her friend too, so Ron gave her the Lancet report that Dr. Vass gave him. Dr. Eve returned home and hung up the painting in the apartment hiding the damage she caused in the wall with the hammer from her anger. Dr. Eve read the French Lancet report and showed up at the hospital and told the nurse at the hospital to reduce all her AZT patients to the minimum dosage. David reminded Ron that he lost the restraining order lawsuit against the government when Ron told him to file another lawsuit about shutting down the Peptide T lab that 3,000 customers needed. Ron instructed lawyer David to find a San Francisco, California judge, outside of Texas, to handle things. David then left the boxes with 10,000 anti-AZT brochures with Ron. Ron handed out the brochures at a CDC/NIH meeting to help educate the people about alternatives to the poisonous AZT. Ron was escorted out by security when he made a scene and announced that the big pharmas were backing the government workers’ salaries (like Barkley with FDA) to push certain drugs on the people that didn’t work. The Dallas Mercy hospital board held a meeting where Dr. Sevard told Dr. Eve that they wanted her resignation, but she stormed out swearing and told them that she wouldn’t quit and they would need to fire her. Eve later had a beer at Ron’s place and they hugged and had a heart-to-heart. Ron told Eve that he wished that he could rodeo again, take his woman dancing and have kids when he really preferred to use females for sex and not dance with them. Ron wanted his life to mean something and Eve told him it already did. The next day, Ron drove off in his truck but had a medical emergency so he got out of the truck and stood in the middle of the major intersection. Multiple cars almost hit Ron before two officers appeared and Tucker dismissed the other officer to direct traffic so Tucker could handle Ron himself. Officer Tucker took Ron to his own house and gave him an injection of something. Six months later, Ron and David showed up at the US District Court in San Francisco. The California judge stated that the FDA was a bully and was misusing its power to prevent terminally ill people from trying non-approved drugs that were non-toxic. However, the judge had no legal authority to intervene so he dismissed the case. Ron called Eve to tell her that they lost, and when he returned to his house in Texas he found that Eve had gathered together supporters to applaud Ron for his efforts. After the CA trial, the FDA allowed Ron to use Peptide T for himself and he went back to drinking and riding bulls in the rodeos. On Day 2557, aka September 12, 1992, Ron died of AIDS seven years after he was diagnosed with HIV. The low dose of AZT combined with other drugs saved millions of lives. This movie had a budget of $5 million and grossed $55 million at the box office. The movie cover art listed, Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal, “Hugely entertaining.” David Denby, The New Yorker “Matthew McConaughey is astounding.” Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times, “Exhilirating. Impossible to forget.” Alynda Wheat, People, “Jared Leto is flat-out amazing!” David Edelstein, New York Magazine, “A crowd pleaser!” Peter Travers, Rolling Stone, “Matthew McConaughey has found the role of his career,” and “deeply moving. A livewire of a movie!”