A non-FDA-approved high

SOMETIMES, the road to dusty death is paved with second chances - and a way to atone for all the wrong turns you took in life. Dallas Buyers Club is the true story of how a foul-mouthed, beer-swilling, coke-snorting, whore-loving homophobe transforms crushing adversity into opportunity and hope, channelling his anger and frustration into a larger cause.

When rodeo rider Ron Woodroof is diagnosed with HIV in 1985 and given 30 days to live, he tackles the disease head on, informing himself through medical journals and newspaper articles. He becomes an outspoken critic of the limited medical treatment available in the US and an unlikely crusader for AIDs by smuggling non-approved drugs from other countries and selling them - by way of membership - to fellow sufferers. Along the way, he takes on the medical establishment, the pharmaceutical industry and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

A lifetime of reckless behaviour catches up to Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey) when he suffers an accident at work and is sent to hospital, where grim reality finally bites. In rapid succession, he rejects a tightly controlled trial drug programme administered by the hospital, buys much larger quantities of the same drug in a failed attempt to get better and is shunned by his former buddies for having a gay person's disease.