The tagline says it all: "In 1980s Detroit, Ricky Wershe Jr. was a street hustler, FBI informant, and drug kingpin — all before he turned 16."
What might seem like an unbelievable plot crafted by the wild and creative minds of screenwriters, the story
The trailer for White Boy Rick was released Monday and is set to Donna Summer's disco hit "I Feel Love" — which perfectly scores the surreal urgency of how Michigan's longest-serving nonviolent juvenile offender came to hold such a notorious and misunderstood title.
Bruce Dern and Jennifer Jason Leigh star alongside McConaughey, who goes full dad as Richard Wershe Sr. to the unknown Baltimore teenager Richie Merritt, who plays the title role.
Wershe was just 17 in 1987 when he was sentenced to life in prison without parole for a drug conviction. In 2017, at 47 years old, White Boy Rick was granted parole when the board ruled in favor of his plea for freedom after a change in Michigan's Constitution that no longer allowed minors to receive life sentences without parole.
Just five weeks after he was granted parole, Wershe was arrested for
Though the majority of White Boy Rick was shot in Cleveland, the movie visited Detroit last spring for a single day of shooting. Last month, McConaughey sat down with Jimmy Kimmel and discussed what it was like chatting with Wershe for hours while at the Oaks Correctional Facility in Northern Michigan in preparation for the film.
"He wasn't impressed with Hollywood," McConaughey says, "he was working on, 'Let me get out of here and be a free man again.'"
White Boy Rick is slated for a wide release on Sept. 21.
See the trailer below.
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