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Emily Blunt is one of those actresses whose name, appearance and body of work seems like she should be doing Downton Abbey, The Crown or some other period piece movie or TV show. At one time, she was the contender to play Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But she has proved that she is capable of being an action star in Edge of Tomorrow.
That being said, Pain Hustlers is a type of movie that should have showcased her talents to be a serious actress in a role that you wouldn’t expect her in. Take Jennifer Lawrence in No Hard Feelings or Cameron Diaz in Vanilla Sky. Here she plays Liza Drake, a single mother trying to make ends meet as an exotic dancer while living in her sister’s garage. But things go bad when they are kicked out and Liza and her daughter, Phoebe (Chloe Coleman), are in a cheap motel.
Liza tracks down a sleazy customer, Pete Brenner (Chris Evans), she met at the club. She works for Zanna, a pharmaceutical company offering pain killers for cancer victims. But it’s struggling, something Liza doesn’t know when she is paid to find potential physicians within a week. As luck happens, she finds a desperate physician, Dr. Lydell (Brian d’Arcy James) and slowly thinks take off that the money is rolling in. The CEO, Dr. Jack Neel (Andy Garcia), eventually rewards Liza’s abilities and promotes her.
It just so happens Liza and Pete decide to hire attractive women and even men who are willing to appeal to doctors’ vices (performing sexual acts) to get them to prescribe the medication. Liza gets a nice place to live and Phoebe is suffering from CAVM, so she’s able to take care of her. But things go bad as the opioid epidemic kicks off and the authorities start cracking down. The movie is set during the early 2010s so there was not as much concern at first.
Unfortunately, David Yates, who directed the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beast movies, resorts to the same cliches and tropes in telling the story. He obviously is inspired by The Wolf of Wall Street and the wild crazy debauchery. I’m not doubting a lot of this happened, but so much had probably been changed to avoid legalities, you have to take a lot of it with a grain of salt. It’s based on the case against Insys Therapeutics which was doing opioid profiteering. Neel is based on Dr. John Kapoor. The location is changed from the Arizona to Florida. But it doesn’t matter, you’ve seen this movie before done better.
Blunt does her best in the role but Evans is poorly miscast. I get that after being in the MCU so long, he’s trying to shed his good guy image the way Jimmy Stewart did with all those Hitchcock roles. But he was a delight in Knives Out. Yet, it’s not the same here. Evans is just too nice of a guy. It comes off as a nice guy trying to play a sleazy guy for fun. And Garcia is wasted in a role. After his mediocre role in The Mule and that blink and miss walk-on in Passengers, he really needs to get his agent to find better material. Worse is Catherine O’Hara’s role as Liza’s trashy mother. She seems to be doing a parody.
What do you think? Please comment.