Pain Hustlers (Netflix, 2023)
Emily Blunt gives a stellar performance in Pain Hustlers, an entertaining crime drama heavily influenced by the likes of Erin Brockovich, The Big Short and The Wolf of Wall Street.
Pain Hustlers tells the story of Liza Drake (Blunt), a struggling high-school drop-out with a shady past, who is in desperate need of a better life. What makes her kinda-sorta sympathetic is that she’s not just doing it for herself, but also for her young daughter (Chloe Coleman), who suffers from a potentially fatal medical condition.
When Liza lands a job with a failing pharmaceutical start-up in Central Florida, her luck starts to turn. Liza not only proves herself to be an able saleswoman, but also a talented people’s person, who knows how to charm the doctors to prescribe the drug she is selling to their patients.
So far, so good and success (and the high life) soon beckon for Liza, her boss (Chris Evans) and their financial backer (Andy Garcia), who is already a multi-millionaire, by the way, living in a heavily secluded mansion.
The problem is the drug they are selling, fetanyl, is not only highly addictive, but over time, can also lead to deadly overdoses. Another problem is the bribes they use to convince doctors that are not so easily led. The writing is on the wall when the authorities begin a criminal investigation, while Liza starts to have moral doubts about what she is doing for a living.
The movie is directed quite efficiently by David Yates, who is mostly known for his Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts movies. It was written by Wells Tower, who adapted an article from New York Times Magazine by Evan Hughes, who later turned that article into a non-fiction book called The Hard Sell.
The first hour of Pain Hustlers is pretty terrific, after that it becomes both a little more patchy and more predictable, as this is a classic rise and fall story, followed by a little bit of redemption.
Still, drawing inspiration from Scorsese and the like at least makes sure it’s visually interesting enough, while you also learn quite a bit about the way the pharmaceutical industry works in the United States, where patients are secondary to monetary gain. I’m sure that for lot of readers, like those of you living in the US, this is nothing new, but as a European I’m still kind of amazed by it.
And what keeps the movie going above all else, is Blunt, who is in nearly every scene and captures all the highs and lows of Liza’s emotional arc. She is such a talented actress, and even though she gets plenty of opportunity to shine in movies like A Quiet Place or even Jungle Cruise, it would be nice to see her more often in dramas like this.
Cause even though Pain Hustlers is not as good as the movies that it so clearly draws inspiration from, it’s still a fun watch.