Director: David Yates
Genre: Crime/
Drama
Runtime: 122
minutes
Year:
2023
Starring: Emily Blunt, Chris Evans, Andy Garcia, Catherine O’Hara, Brian D’Arcy James
Description: Liza (Emily
Blunt) dreams of a better life for herself and her daughter. Hired to work for
a bankrupt pharmaceutical company, Liza skyrockets with sales and into the high
life, putting her in the middle of a federal criminal conspiracy.
Review: In “Pain Hustlers”, we see the opioid crisis unfold through the eyes of
stripper and sinle mother Liza Drake. Through a combination of perseverance and
luck, she manages to bring a new cancer drug to market. Although the film is
based on the (fiction) book of the same name, that was based on a New York
Magazine article.
Director David Yates seems
to be inspired by “The Big Short” (unpopular opinion, but a movie I really
hated), a film about the financial crisis in which seriousness and satire are perfectly
intertwined. This movie was very successful, but Yates fails to establish a
similar or at all consistent tone. It’s fast paced, flashy and promising, but
never fully delivers.
Most interesting is the
dichotomy in Liza. After a tough existence as a single mother, she blossoms when
she begins to understand the sleezy lobbying game of the pharmaceutical
industry. Liza herself does virtually nothing illegal. Her mail companions
(played by Chris Evans and Andy Garcia) are the cartoonish villains of
profiteering capitalism. For some extra dollars, they easily look away from an
overdose. Typically, though, the film pays regular attention to victims but
avoids any kind of systemic criticism.
The film is an easy watch as
a sensational drama, but its concluding message (greed is a mortal sin) turns
out to be a bland one. It’s unfortunate that “Pain Hustlers’ did not make that
underlying aspect a main issue. If you’re interested in this theme, a
mini-series called “Dopesick” is definitely better at it.
Rating: 2,5/ 5
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