Oscar buzz: Matthew McConaughey as as a rodeo cowboy with AIDS in 1980’s Texas.

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AIDS! In 1985, homophobe and sex-addicted rodeo cowboy Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey) is told he has only 30 days left to live. The Texan refuses to accept his death sentence and tries to take part in an AZT drug trial. But when that doesn’t help, he starts to smuggle unapproved medications from Mexico to the US. Together with the positive transsexual Rayon (Jared Leto) he founds the "Dallas Buyers Club", to whose members he sells the illegal drugs. But Woodroof soon attracts the attention of the US government.

Based on Woodroof’s true story, Jean Marc Vallée’s sober and straightforward Dallas Buyers Club reminds audiences how helpless doctors were in the 80’s in the face of AIDS, making them dependent on the profit-seeking pharma industry and corrupt FDA agents. McConaughey lost almost 20 kilos for the role and as Woodroof looks like a shadow of his former self. His honest portrait of an unlikeable man who finds his humanity only once he becomes sick is a welcome addition to his fine recent performances in movies like The Lincoln Lawyer, Paperboy, Mud, Killer Joe and The Wolf of Wall Street.