PAIN HUSTLERS

US, 2023, 123 minutes, Colour.

Emily Blunt, Chris Evans, Catherine O'Hara, Andy Garcia, Jay Duplass, Bryan D'Arcy James, Amit Shah, Chloe Coleman.

Directed by David Yates.

Here is a drama that focuses on the opioid crisis in the United States (and beyond). This is a fictionalised drama about a young woman, Liza, working in the club, with an ill daughter, who is propositioned by a businessman in the club, makes contact with him, looking for a job. She is played by Emily Blunt. He is played by Chris Evans.

Liza is shrewd, fabricates an education background, auditions well, especially with the founder of the company, Jack Neel, played by Andy Garcia. The company is just starting, producing drugs, looking for outlets, promoting the drugs with doctors, offering them benefits.

The drama shows how easy it is to be caught up in the enthusiasm of big profit, underestimating the moral approaches of the company directors. Liza find she has a flair for influencing doctors, a talent for plausible explanations. The film has an interesting supporting cast led by Catherine O’Hara who plays Liza’s mother who becomes involved with Dr Neel as well as becoming a member of the sales staff.

Ultimately, there are moral issues, doctors and their downfalls, arrests, exposures, court cases, prison.

Since 2020, the opioid epidemic, the proliferation of oxycodone and fentanyl, have become key to some documentaries, a television miniseries, other fiction films. The focus is on the Sackler family who developed the opioids with great business success but with moral challenges. Award-winning documentarist, Alex Gibney, probed this in The Crime of the Century. Celebrated photographer, Nan Golden, also made a devastating exploratory and accusing documentary, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed. Netflix also has a six part series, Painkiller, starring Matthew Broderick, a docudrama about the Sackler is. The theme was also present in the thriller, Crisis, with Gary Oldman.

Pain Hustlers is interesting and enjoyable as a drama – but, it raises the very important issues of opioids, medication, exploitation, financial interests.

(Direction by David Yates who made the last four Harry Potter films and the Fantastic Beasts series)