Pain Hustlers

Starring: Emily Blunt, Chris Evans, Catherine O'Hara, Chloe Coleman, Andy Garcia, Brian d'Arcy James, Jay Duplass, Amit Shah, Valerie LeBlanc, Aubrey Dollar
Directed by: David Yates
Rating: R
Genre: Drama
2023

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Several employees of a Pharmaceutical company begin taking greater risks and skirting laws to push their drug to doctors and drive up sales at any cost.

Review:

Tim: It's odd that David Yates' Pain Hustlers doesn't really work as well as it should. Yates is a solid director, they have a shocking true story of crime and excess, they assembled an impressive cast- and yet, nothing about this film feels special or unique. It feels like the kind of movie we've seen many times before. It's a bit sad that a story about greed and excess that leads to pain, suffering, and death that is based on a true story should feel redundant, but that's the world we live in. Perhaps Pain Hustlers came a bit too late- we've been down this road before. But, even more than that, it's not an especially good movie. Despite having everything you'd want on paper, the execution is somewhat lacking.

One of the central issues is that there's really no good, worthwhile characters to root for here. They're all fairly unlikable. And, I don't even mean unlikable in a way that is extreme enough for us to kinda like them regardless. They're not especially interesting and the movie doesn't dive deeply enough for us to really understand them. It feels too surface-level. The movie is 2 hours and 3 minutes long and it really just takes a deep look at Emily Blunt's character. Hers isn't especially compelling, and the supporting characters feel too shallow, so we're left with an entire cast of good actors but average characters. Did I actually care about any character here? Did I care what happened to them? Not really. You have to assume in most of these films, the end result is either jail or a severe injustice and I felt fairly numb to both results. The movie doesn't give us enough reasons to become invested.

The cast give good performances, but they don't have quite enough to work with. Emily Blunt is solid in the lead role. She's a good, likable actress. The issue here is that her character is a bit underwhelming. Her story is almost too crazy to believe, but I never felt a deep connection with her character. A lot of that is the writing, but I wonder why Blunt wasn't able to connect more. The same can be said for Chris Evans- you can tell he reveled in playing this shady character. But, he seems all flash and so little substance. It felt like a flashy role for Evans, but not a character he truly understood or conveyed well to the audience. Catherine O'Hara has a lot of fun with her role, but her character was too easy to dismiss. Andy Garcia is unique in his portrayal of this increasingly erratic billionaire, but he felt too disconnected from the main action of the movie. He seems to be an afterthought for much of the film, until at the end it expects us to be interested in his character and his fate. It's too late at that point and it was bizarre how much the film focused on that, like the audience had a real reason to care. Brian d'Arcy James is perhaps the only actor who really manages to elevate his role, to seem like he's more than the words written on the page. His supporting turn is especially strong and I was intrigued by his complicated character. Chloe Coleman was fine, which is how I think I've described her in every film of hers I've seen. She's never bad, but far from remarkable. Her performances usually elicit shrugs and this one did, too. It's odd to see a cast like this and my review of their performances to be so middle-of-the-road.

The story itself definitely feels predictable. We see these Pharmaceutical reps pushing their wonder drug, regardless of the side effects, regardless of the legality of their actions. They begin to live a life of excess and get caught up in the money, the power, the excess. It's definitely an American story, but one that's been told elsewhere significantly better. Maybe the budget was too small- even their excess feels miniature. The whole movie feels too narrow. I didn't dislike the film- I stayed engaged throughout. It was just hard to care about anything happening or to be especially entertained. This is a decent movie from beginning to end, but you don't even see flashes of what else it could have been.

I definitely think we need movies like this, to serve as cautionary tales. I didn't know many of the details of this story, although I was familiar with the criminal actions in this sector. I guess I did get a bit more insight, but the movie stops short of feeling revelatory. It feels like a decent effort, but one that no one gave extra in. It feels too straightforward, fairly uninspired. It's not a bad movie and you can do far worse, but it's yet another Netflix film that feels like it misses the mark.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: The Wolf of Wall Street, The Big Short