Taking on America’s devastating opioid crisis is a noble task for any filmmaker. The epidemic began in the late 1990s when the prescription of opioids for pain management began to spike. Since then opioid-involved addictions have been on the rise, leading to an astonishing number of deaths by overdose (it went from 47,600 deaths in 2017 to 80,411 in 2021). So any movie that seeks to bring attention to the crisis should be commended.

Such is the case with “Pain Hustlers”, a new film from Netflix based on a 2018 New York Times Magazine article of the same name by Evan Hughes and his subsequent book “The Hard Sell”. The film is directed by David Yates (the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts films) who works from a script by Wells Tower. The movie takes its aim at the people who fueled the epidemic, namely those in the pharmaceutical world. That includes greedy drug companies, devious middlemen. and crooked doctors – all driven by the seemingly endless flow of wealth at the expense of the sick and suffering.

Unfortunately “Pain Hustlers” isn’t the movie to recommend to those interested in the subject. It opens a number of revealing boxes and shines a pretty candid light on the vile and appalling practices of unscrupulous drug companies and complicit doctors whose rackets made them rich while killing an enormous amount of people in the process. But some misguided choices and a desire to be both clever and funny hinders its ability to tell an otherwise meaningful story. Even its impressive star wattage can’t save it from itself.

The always great Emily Blunt stars in a role that she makes more compelling than it has any right to be. She plays Liza Drake, a down on her luck single mother working as an exotic dancer just to take care of her teenage daughter Phoebe (Chloe Coleman). Things only get worse after Liza loses her job, her car, and her place to stay. In desperation she calls Pete Brenner (a wildly uneven Chris Evans), a shady pharmaceutical executive she met in her club who once offered her a job making $100,000 per year.

It turns out that Pete works for a nearly bankrupt drug company called Zanna Therapeutics. It’s headed by Doctor Jack Neel (Andy Garcia), the creator of a cancer pain drug called Lonafen. Zanna needs Lonafen on the market but they don’t have the capital to compete with bigger companies who have a stranglehold on their region. So they hire Liza, fully expecting her to fail. But with the company about to go under, who cares?

Liza is given one week to convince one doctor to prescribe Lonafen. And wouldn’t you know it, not only does she succeed, she kickstarts the dying company. With Pete by her side, the two work the corrupt system and after one quarter they go from 0 to 86% market share in the southeast. But you know how stories like this go. It’s only a matter of time before their greed gets the better of them and they push things too far.

To the film’s credit it does uncover quite a bit about how the scandalous system works. It shows drug company reps frequenting hospitals and pain management clinics, enticing physicians to get onboard with their product. It shows how grifts such as speaker programs whisk doctors away for lavish weekends in exchange for prescribing their drug. And it shows how quickly some doctors will toss aside their ethics once the checks start coming in.

Unfortunately all of that is undermined by the film’s numerous flaws starting with its seismic tonal shifts. It’s clunky desire to be both a slick edgy comedy and a smart eye-opening drama is best encapsulated in Chris Evans’ character and performance. One minute he tries to be serious-minded only to act like he’s doing an amped up scene from “The Wolf of Wall Street” shortly after. The movie sobers up in the last act but by then it’s a little too late.

Adding to its problems, “Pain Hustlers” is overlong and at times frustratingly dull. But perhaps its biggest offense lies in its focus. The movie is so honed in on its disgustingly wealthy profiteers that the true victims (the people who actually died) barely have a voice. In fairness, the movie takes a swing at acknowledging them. But they mostly feel like an afterthought. Altogether those are issues too big to overcome. Blunt deserves credit for carrying the load and making it watchable. But she can only do so much in a film that at times informs, but is too messy to truly spread awareness. “Pain Hustlers” is now streaming on Netflix.

VERDICT – 2 STARS