Pain Hustlers

Considering there are now more than 75 reviews on the movie, I'll keep it brief.

Emily Blunt, Chris Evans, Andy Garcia, Catherine O'Hara and all the actors turn in strong performances. It's really their acting that made the story engaging and effective. Especially considering the big pharma genre of drama movies has been milked a lot lately. Blunt is a stand-out here, bringing emotion to every scene she's in.

You'll get high drama, a little suspense, a few laughs and feel a connection with at least one of the main characters. You will likely also feel some anger... and compassion for Emily Blunt's character and her daughter.

It's a bit longer than I felt it should've been but it will keep you interested to see how it all comes to a head at the end. If you've got a couple hours and are looking for a dramatic story about the corruption of the pharmaceutical industry, this movie is worth the watch. A move has to be almost life-changing for me to rate it 8, 9, or10, but in my book, this one is a solid 7.

Pain Hustlers is an opioid rendition of the Wolf of Wall Street by the way of The Big Short which means it's a really entertaining true story with a clear purpose but it's also really hard to deny that it took the safest and most boring approach to telling such an important story, drowning out the more serious aspects in favour of something more generic.

Emily Blunt is great, the film wants you to genuinely care about her despite the flaws and it's her skill that actually makes that happen. Chris Evans continues to get as far away from Captain America as humanly possible with another undemanding yet enjoyable irredeemable asshole.

It's so nice to see director David Yates finally break free of the Harry Potter franchise with something so different, even if the newfound style here is derivative and remains fairly desaturated. The needle drops are used the right amount, they work well even if some of them are incredibly obvious song choices.

Carried by a typically strong Blunt performance, Pain Hustlers is both watchable and eye-opening, even though its dramatic impulses do kind of cancel each other out.

Directed by David Yates, who has spent most of the last two decades helming "Harry Potter" movies and prequels and might not be the best fit for this material, Pain Hustlers aims to be a fast-paced, raucous, blunt and slick work a la "The Wolf of Wall Street" and "The Big Short," but winds up caught between the worlds of breezy satire and hard truth. Emily Blunt and Chris Evans are fabulous but you'll be hard-pressed to remember anything else by the time the credits are done rolling.

But the movie does succeed in unpacking the raw grift and exploitation of the pharma sales business, and the wider dysfunction of the American health care and legal systems that allows it to go unchecked. So a thumbs up on that part.

My Rating: 6.5/10.

Performances of the main leads (Emily Blunt and Chris Evans) were good , their chemistry was okay. Story line was also okay. Though I do get why some people would give this movie a bad ratings. However in my own opinion, I found the movie to be interesting since it was base on real life story and a good reflection on people's never-ending desires for success.

If you ask me if it's worthy to watch or not, I'd say it is. We all have various standards about what a good movie should be like, therefore I'd suggest "give it a try". If you've read terrible reviews don't mind it ,that doesn't accurately reflect the entire movie.

Like some other posters I am at a loss to discern why this got poor reviews. It's well made, has a great cast and is a pertinent moral tale. Blunt is the star of course and she carries the film along with Chris Evans. Based on a true story it exposes the corruption in the pharmaceutical industry that fosters greed and profit over the actual health of America's citizens. Once Blunt's character, her fellow sales people and all the immoral doctors involved in prescribing pain meds get hooked on huge payouts, no one cares about the damaged lives that resulted. It's very entertaining and very sobering and justice prevails.