The spouse of a person who practically died of an opioid overdose comes bursting into the workplace of the sleazy physician who prescribed it, wrongly, in change for private achieve. She slugs the physician, in her agony.
The scene comes deep into the brand new Netflix movie “Pain Hustlers,” and it feels bracingly actual and tragic.
If solely the remainder of the film, the newest in a string of opioid-themed movies, felt the identical. Instead, regardless of a high-powered forged that includes a reliably stable Emily Blunt, an expertly low-life Chris Evans and the gifted Catherine O’Hara, the movie tries too laborious to be one thing it isn’t, or shouldn’t be: slick and breezy and too intelligent for its personal good, full of mockumentary interviews, wild montages, and different methods used to extra disciplined impact in additional completed movies.
Not that Blunt isn’t an efficient presence right here as Liza Drake, a struggling, single Florida mother who works at a strip membership however desires to maneuver up in life — to be handled with respect, and to assist her ailing teen daughter and her flighty mom. Indeed, Blunt carries the movie together with her clever and likable presence.
But that speaks exactly to the opposite huge downside with the movie, which is directed by “Harry Potter” vet David Yates and impressed by the article and ebook by Evan Hughes, telling the real-life story of an opioid startup that deliberately mis-marketed a fentanyl spray meant for extreme most cancers ache. Here, the naked bones are the identical, however Yates and screenwriter Wells Tower invent their very own corrupt firm and their very own characters.
And the filmmakers appear decided to make their protagonist likable. In giving Liza a reasonably ironclad excuse for her actions — her candy, plucky daughter wants expensive mind surgical procedure — they take a simple method out. Not to say that by a lot of the movie, Liza believes (unbelievably, actually, given her smarts) that she’s merely serving to sufferers get the suitable drug. Wouldn’t it have been extra fascinating to see Blunt play a personality who knew precisely what she was doing?
Instead, Liza claims at the beginning, trying again: “I did it for the right reasons.” And right here’s gross sales rep Pete, her unscrupulous colleague: “This was 2011. Strictly speaking, we were not part of the opioid crisis.” Evans, leaning into the sleaze, is enjoyable to observe all through, although the filmmakers care oddly little about his backstory.
Then there’s Jackie, Liza’s mother, wacky but in addition steely, and, within the palms of a beautiful comedian actor like O’Hara, vivid in the whole lot she does. Lest you suppose Mom doesn’t approve of Liza’s slippery new profession, heck, she joins her on the firm, and even makes strikes on the boss — however we’re getting forward of ourselves.
When we first meet Liza, she’s dwelling in her sister’s storage. At the strip membership, she meets Pete, who, mid-flirtation, suggests she come work for him, promising $100k in commissions in a single yr.
Liza’s daughter, Phoebe (Chloe Coleman, in a beautiful efficiency) will get in bother at highschool, partaking in what one would possibly name, um, arson. We additionally be taught she suffers from epilepsy. She requires a secure setting, the physician says. And then Liza and daughter get kicked out of the storage and transfer into an inexpensive motel, consuming immediate noodles. Liza reconsiders that job supply.
Outfitted with a pretend resume — Pete, with a fast edit, provides her a biochem diploma — Liza will get employed by Zanna, the corporate run by eccentric billionaire physician Jack Neel (Andy Garcia, effectively creepy) and proves a fast examine. Against all odds, she finds a health care provider (Brian D’Arcy James, enjoying in opposition to sort as a sleazeball ache doc in want of a hair transplant) to write down a prescription for Lonafen, a sublingual fentanyl spray. Soon she’s corralled him right into a “speakers program” designed to bribe extra docs.
Moving rapidly from sundresses to color-blocked energy ensembles, Liza begins raking in commissions, and he or she and Pete rent a workforce of hungry salespeople. Pete likens what they’re doing to driving a number of miles over the pace restrict — technically unlawful, however all people does it. Meanwhile, Liza’s instantly capable of afford a apartment match for a king, purchase Mom a automotive, and enroll Phoebe in non-public college.
Zanna, named for Neel’s personal late spouse, goes public, and is the trade’s new child on the block. The firm’s celebratory slogan, shouted at decadent events: “We Own Cancer!”
But issues begin getting uncomfortable. Neel, more and more paranoid, rejects Liza’s proposed compliance plan. Then, he decides one of the best ways to enhance flat gross sales is to market Lonafen off-label — for any form of ache, even complications.
Liza is aghast — Pete, not a lot — however her daughter’s situation worsens, and Medicaid gained’t cowl the operation. She wants money. Then, sufferers begin overdosing. The look one man’s widow provides a weeping Liza, wordless, is chilling.
The tempo picks up because the regulation begins bearing down. But in the end, “Pain Hustlers” appears like a retreading of the identical floor lined in different current works, bringing nothing particularly new to the desk and, in splitting the stylistic distinction between slick/breezy and poignant/genuine, succeeding totally at neither.
“Pain Hustlers,” a Netflix launch, has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association “for language all through, some sexual content material, nudity and drug use.” Running time: 122 minutes. Two stars out of 4.
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