Mediocre! Review Of Pain Hustlers (2023)

The movie begins properly displaying Liza Drake (played by Emily Blunt) running to her night job as an exotic dancer. She has a teenage daughter, Phoebe (played by Chloe Coleman) who suffers from seizures and they both live in her sister's garage. While at the club and finding it difficult to dance on the stripper pole, Liza meets Pete Brenner (Chris Evans). After a chat, he offers her a job, promising her six figures in her bank account before the end of the year if she can motivate doctors to prescribe Lonafin for cancer pain.

Liza needs the money for better living conditions for herself and her daughter, so she takes the job. In no time, the company starts to succeed as Lonafin is being prescribed by doctors and everyone in the company becomes rich. When the CEO becomes greedy and pushes Liza and other staff to expand the use of the drug for mild conditions like migraines, Liza becomes worried and guilt-ridden. Will this company and its addictive drug continue to make waves on the market or will Liza do right by her conscience?

Review

As I said earlier, once I saw the title, I could easily guess what the film was about. The plot is easily predictable and boring. It's a pity that the film stars these cool actors but we accept what Yates dishes out to his audience. The storytelling is good, portraying the events and infusing it with some emotional scenes such as the pain of a cancer patient and the medical condition of Liza's daughter. Every other attempt to push this real event through isn't so awe-inspiring.

The cast's performance is okayish, thanks to Emily Blunt who does great acting but could be excellent if more action was infused into her character beyond the one or two lines to doctors, and the party scene where she encourages the employed salespersons on how to do their business. I expected more from Chris Evans but sadly he was underused as an actor. He deserved better.

As a two-hour movie, viewers may get bored along the way but Blunt ensured that didn't happen. So basically, it's a Blunt movie all the way.

The cinematography and editing is good. I have no complaints in this department. Themes of drug abuse, addiction and greed are covered in this film. The plot is well resolved with a satisfying ending.

Overall, I'm not sure I would recommend this film because it's rather mediocre. But if you want a dose of Emily Blunt and Chris Evans, then have at it. I'll rate it 2.5 stars out of 5.

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^{Other images are screenshots from the movie}