Title – Pain Hustlers (2023) 

Director – David Yates (The Legend of Tarzan) 

Cast – Emily Blunt, Chris Evans, Andy Garcia, Catherine O’Hara

Plot – The true story of pharmaceutical company workers Liza Drake (Blunt) and her supervisor Pete Brenner (Evans) who were involved in the questionable sales and distribution of a new pain management drug that saw them enter into the high life before gaining the attention of the federal government. 

“I will make my life count”

Review by Eddie on 10/11/2023

The newest addition to a recent array of pharmaceutical/prescription drug themed tales that have found their way onto our big and small screens in recent years, with the likes of documentaries All The Beauty And The Bloodshed and The Crime Of The Century joining star-filled TV series such as Dopesick and Painkiller before this David Yates Netflix exclusive arrived, Pain Hustlers has some weighty themes at its core and a talented cast to bring them home but this high-profile true life tale is a complete failure to launch that badly wants to be something it’s not. 

It’s been a long time since I can recall a film attempting so desperately to be a certain type of thing, with Yates going hard to make his undoubtedly awards aimed tale a hybrid The Big Short meets The Wolf of Wall Street but while he stylistically at times reaches the aesthetics of those films, his feature has none of the smarts, charms or pizzazz to even be considered in the same sentences as those far better outings, products that managed to turn their true life subject matters and materials into thrilling, entertaining and memorable rides. 

Still yet to prove himself outside of the Harry Potter universe that consumed his directional life for much of the early and mid 2000’s, Yates has on an end judgement here bitten off far more than he can chew as he and his leads Emily Blunt and Chris Evans go for broke trying their best to make Pain Hustlers the coolest and hippest offering you’ve seen this year, only for it to become one of the most try-hard and lifeless ones instead. 

Struggling to find his footing in his post-Marvel career, Evans has been assigning himself to a range of forgettable products over recent years and his role here as the Jordan Belfort light Pete Brenner is one of his worst turns yet as the smooth talking/wannabe rapper brings Emily Blunt’s struggling single mum Liza Drake into the fold of his pharmaceutical company overseen by Andy Garcia’s footwear hating boss Dr. Neel but the real shame of Pain Hustlers is in its wasting of Blunt’s talents in one of her rare leading turns. 

Always so charismatic and full of energy, the failings of Pain Hustlers is far from Blunt’s fault as she gives it her best shot as the not entirely likeable Drake gets embroiled further and further into her new high-roller lifestyle of attempting to get local doctors to sign up their patients to a new game changing pain killing drug designed for cancer patients but not even her valiant attempts to keep her head above water give this DOA Netflix original anything worth recommending a watch. 

Filled with so-called witty and snappy attempts at smart scripting, oddly designed black and white fake interviews, distracting freeze frames and a range of over the top segments and performances, Pain Hustlers hustles lots for very little outcome on its way to becoming one of the years most unfortunate failures, embarrassingly thinking it was up to the same standards as the films it painful tries to emulate. 

Final Say – 

Wolf of Wall Street this is not, Pain Hustlers wants you to believe it’s the hip new kid on the block but David Yates diabolical A-list filled snoozefest is an out and out bomb that criminally wastes its lead duo along the way. 

1 shoe out of 5