Chris Evans and Emily Blunt's Netflix movie Pain Hustlers misses its mark
Since it was announced two years ago, Pain Hustlers has been preceded by some notable TV shows on the opioid crisis in the US, including Dopesick and Painkiller. Even The Fall of the House of Usher covered it in its own way.
That doesn't mean there's no scope for a more condensed movie about the crisis, but it meant that Pain Hustlers had to bring something new to the table.
However, in deciding to go the fictionalised route, it appears to have lost the punch needed to stir a necessary outrage. It aims to be a Wolf of Wall Street for the opioid crisis, but ultimately just ends up an entertaining, but empty, watch.
Inspired by Evan Hughes's New York Times Magazine article 'The Pain Hustlers', the new Netflix movie takes the real-life company of that article (Insys) and morphs it into fictional company Zanna Therapeutics which is in desperate need of a win for its drug Lonafen.
The audience surrogate into this dark world of speaker programs and off-label prescriptions is Liza Drake (Emily Blunt). She's a single mother who has just lost her job when she meets cocky sales rep Pete Brenner (Chris Evans) in a strip club, where he offers her the chance of a new life.
It turns out that Liza is a natural salesperson and with "nine-million dollar man" Dr Lydell (Brian d'Arcy James) recruited to Zanna's cause, the company goes from strength to strength as it plunges new depths in the pharma industry. Before long, Liza starts to stop enjoying her newfound wealth and worries instead about the real-world consequences.
The problem for Pain Hustlers is that in humanising Liza, it blunts (pun intended) its edge. It's too concerned with conventional storytelling and the need for a character to root for that, although Liza is doing dodgy things, you're never far away from a reminder that she's doing it for her daughter, who's in need of life-saving surgery.
So as much as the movie tries to ape the wild debauchery of Wolf of Wall Street or the sharp satire of The Big Short, it's never quite outrageous or darkly comic enough to make an impact.
It tries to add depth with its faux-documentary structure, where characters address the camera and we see 'real' victims of Zanna, but it can never have the impact of the real-life tragedy of the opioid crisis. Pain Hustlers swerves into darker territory in the final act, yet it never feels organic and more just to redeem Liza.
The flaws of the narrative are not the fault of its talented cast though. Chris Evans adds another irredeemable douchebag role to his fun post-MCU career, while Emily Blunt is charismatic and entertaining as Liza. Andy García as eccentric Zanna CEO Jack Neel and Catherine O'Hara as Liza's mother Jackie also provide entertaining support.
With David Yates directing in one of his few non-Wizarding World movies, Pain Hustlers is expertly honed for mainstream appeal, delivering complex information in a snappy and understandable way.
You won't really be bored by Pain Hustlers, but you might end it all wondering what the point it's trying to make is. It's ultimately too safe to create the outrage it seeks and as much as its cast tries, it lacks the emotional heft that a real-life story might have delivered.
Pain Hustlers is available to watch now on Netflix.
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