Pain Hustlers

While it picks out the right target for a scathing and timely expose, Pain Hustlers lacks the courage to follow through on its convictions.

This uneven drama places blame for the opioid crisis on a broken and corrupt American healthcare system — specifically pharmaceutical and insurance firms — from the perspective of the rich getting their comeuppance rather than the poor getting the shaft.

It’s a cutthroat industry characterized by corporate greed and populated by an unscrupulous collection of schemers and swindlers with no moral compass. That includes easily manipulated, libidinous practitioners whose desperate patients get lost in the shuffle.

The film’s outrage is heartfelt. However, this true-life saga of capitalism run amok from British director David Yates (best known for helming the last four Harry Potter movies) is neither as enlightening nor as infuriating as intended.

Liza (Emily Blunt) is struggling to pay the medical bills for her epileptic daughter (Chloe Coleman) while working as an exotic dancer. At the club, she meets Pete (Chris Evans), who leads the sales team at a bankrupt pharma organization that supposedly has developed the next best thing in pain relief.

“You eat what you kill” is how he describes the company’s lucrative commission structure, leading Liza to accept a job offer. She becomes a dynamo and earns a promotion from the fat-cat CEO (Andy Garcia). They hire an army of alluring young saleswomen who fit snugly into business skirts to explain the kickbacks and bribes meant to entice doctors to prescribe their products regardless of patient needs.

Lydell (Brian D’Arcy James) is their guinea pig of choice. As the money starts to flow in, Pete and Liza don’t let laws and ethics get in the way. If your conscious starts to flare up, they figure, try to justify your efforts by convincing yourself that you’re actually alleviating pain rather than considering the addictive aftereffects.

Blunt finds hard-earned sympathy in her character’s efforts to rig the system to her advantage, while Evans embraces the role of the slimy villain.

With its frustrating lack of broader context, the screenplay is both embellished and oversimplified to conform to a rags-to-riches framework in which Liza is both perpetrator and victim.

Likewise, Pain Hustlers tries to have it both ways, caught between idealism and cynicism. The result feels trite rather than provocative.

Rated R, 123 minutes.