Netflix’s Pain Hustlers is the latest in a long, tiresome line of movies that feel like The Big Short knockoffs. This time, the grift is a fictionalized account of Insys Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical company that sold a sprayable version of the highly addictive opioid, fentanyl, which was eventually taken down for lying about the drug’s effects and for paying doctors to promote their product. Though screenwriter Wells Tower pulls much inspiration from Evan Hughes’s The Hard Sell: Crime and Punishment at an Opioid Startup, the film’s protagonist, Liza Drake (Emily Blunt) is a composite character.
Divorced, broke and recently thrown out of her sister’s garage, Liza turns to stripping only to spend her first night bantering with Pete Brenner (Chris Evans), a slimy drug rep who immediately offers her a job at Zanna Therapeutics after seeing how easily she charms him out of his money. Though Liza is clearly unsure as she steps up to the pole for the first time (hilariously heading straight to the bar after seeing another woman perform with ease), she’s pure confidence as she engages Pete in conversation, guessing his profession simply from his clothes. She’s equally confident later, as he introduces her to Zanna’s owner, Dr. Neel (Andy Garcia), even though she’s holding a resume Pete’s just finished doctoring. Indeed, Blunt plays Liza with the kind of movie star charisma that makes the character feel unstoppable. She’s clearly the kind of person so desperate to succeed that she’ll break the rules without a second thought and she and Pete become perfect grifting partners.
As they become more wrapped up in making the company’s miracle pain medication, Lonafen, a success, Evans and Blunt’s banter becomes easier, sharper. There’s thrilling chemistry between them as Pete and Liza toss a traitorous coworker’s office or schmooze a pair of podiatrists in a sad hotel event space. At those times, Pain Hustlers can feel like a classic screwball. Yet when Pete frankly—if drunkenly—asks Liza if they’ll ever sleep together while at a debauched company party after their hard work has paid off, she blithely dismisses him.
Admittedly, even in Hollywood, just because two characters are played by beautiful stars doesn’t mean they have to kiss. However, Pete and Liza’s relationship is so integral to propelling Pain Hustlers’ narrative that the longer it’s unaddressed, the more noticeable it becomes. Certainly, there’s flirtation in their initial interactions. Why else would Pete use the promise of letting Liza “kiss him wherever [she] wants” when wooing her into the job? Why else would Liza, when she makes the money he promised she would, make good on his offer by gently kissing him on the hand in gratitude? Yet the film is so busy delighting in their shenanigans that it never bothers to dive into their connection in or out of the office. So, when one inevitably betrays the other, the emotions in that scene feel—if not false—then at least unearned. And that unfortunately applies to pretty much every character beat in the film.
Though director David Yates can be commended for, on some level, trusting the audience to make connections purely through changes in costuming or behavior, Pain Hustlers simply leaves too much unsaid. While we can easily see how corrupt Liza’s #1 mark/Lonafen prescriber, Dr. Lydell (Brian d’Arcy James), becomes from his disappearing bald spot, leather pants and the addicted patients lining up outside of his practice, shifts in Liza’s character are majorly underdeveloped.
Though Liza and her daughter Phoebe (Chloe Coleman) are affectionate at the beginning, they are suddenly and inexplicably barely on speaking terms near the film’s end. Worse, though Liza seems more than happy to lie and cajole when she first starts working for Zanna, she’s suddenly despondent once she’s achieved success—well before the true danger Lonafen poses to patients is even known. Some of these changes we can reason out, but without showing the character’s emotional shifts, Liza’s growing shame at her own moral rot seems to come for no other reason than that the plot demands it. Good as Blunt is when Liza gets her comeuppance for her actions in the final scenes, the beats ultimately feel hollow because the film doesn’t show us how or why the character got there.
Despite the wild real-life events that give Pain Hustlers its framework and the liberty fictionalizing that story should allow the filmmakers, it doesn’t do enough to connect its story beats into a cohesive whole. Like so many movies of its kind, Pain Hustlers gets too wrapped up in the thrills of the grift to service its ultimate indictment of drug companies and their questionable practices. Tower’s script leaves out so much connective tissue that the film can feel like a collection of expected story beats rather than a meaningful story of American hubris. Instead, the film relies on Blunt’s star power to fill in the gaps. And while, just like Liza herself, she nearly pulls it off, eventually, the problems catch up to her.
