The less you know about Pain Hustlers, the better. If you go into this movie with no expectations and just turn off your brain, it’s gonna be perfectly fine. But if you’re a normal person who ya know, thinks, the more you realize what Emily Blunt, Chris Evans, and David Yates have sold you is basically a giant piece of bullsh*t. Like a more evil version of The Prom on Netflix. Yes, that’s right. An Emily Blunt movie is more evil than a James Corden movie, I said it. Cats is still worst though.
Blunt plays Liza Drake, a down on her luck woman in Florida forced to strip and a cheap club. There she meets Pete Brenner (Chris Evans), the top salesperson at pharmaceutical company Zanna, run by Dr. Jack Neel (Andy Garcia). Drunk Pete offers Liza a job, who’s stuck in a motel with her daughter Phoebe (Chloe Coleman) and out of money options. Desperate, Liza helps convince doctors like Dr. Lydell (Brian d’Arcy James) to prescribe Zanna’s Lonafen because of its supposed minimal side effects compared to the competitors. This effort pays off, sending Liza and Pete into Jack’s good graces and the drug rep high life, as they bring on other adult entertainers, and even Liza’s mom Jackie (Catherine O’Hara), as Zanna is about to go public. But as we all know in corporate America movies, what must rise must also fall.
I’m guessing to appeal to the generally likable Emily Blunt, David Yates goes for the tone of sad A Christmas Carol. As such, Liza is given the “aw shucks” treatment of rotten luck. She’s a single parent, taking care of an unhappy, sick kid, thrown out of her house. What else was she supposed to do right? And the minute she sees the error of her ways, conveniently at the top, Liza has a change of heart, ready and able to answer for her crimes and face the consequences now that she mostly has the money to solve all her other problems. And Blunt buys in, really trying hard to sell Liza’s torture at what she’s actually been selling doctors and the consequences of those sales.
Because here’s the rub. Lonafen (a stand in for Insys pharmaceuticals) is basically fentanyl. You know, fentanyl? The prime escalator of the opioid crisis? The movie treats the incredible amount of pharma mass murder like an afterthought: another obstacle Liza has to overcome to become the hero we want to root for. Liza’s character motivations are especially in poor taste: one unhappy unhealthy daughter does not resolve you from destroying entire communities of people with your greedy pursuits. Frankly, I was happy knowing she still suffers nightmares at the end of the film. Tonally we’re in a rise and fall story when this movie really is just pure cruel fall and rampant death, meaning this tale should be either darkly funny or purposefully mean towards these pharma reps. Pain Hustlers having a hero (she’s not even based on a real person) destroys everything the movie wants to accomplish with condescending hypocrisy, and just makes me feel ickier that I devoted time to watching it and feeling something for this film.
Do yourself a favor. Just click the thumbs down on Pain Hustlers, and move on. Everyone involved has done better things, go watch those instead. Like Devil Wears Prada. Any Captain America Movie. The last few Potter movies. Hell even the dumb Jungle Cruise is better than Pain Hustlers. Bleh.