To give credit where it's arguably due, "Dallas Buyers Club," directed by Jean-Marc Vallée from a screenplay by Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack, takes a different storytelling tack than might be expected of an aspiring-to-inspire based-on-a-true-story drama. Beginning in the mid-1980s, a period cited by journalists and historians as the height of the AIDS crisis in the United States, "Club" is about Ron Woodroof, a real-life figure. Woodroof was a hard-partying, ever-on-the-make quasi-cowboy who, on finding himself HIV-infected and with a very-soon-to-come death sentence hanging over him, began aggressively exploring alternative meds. He unwittingly became an advocate and activist, even as he kept himself alive for years longer than any medical experts had told him he could.