Movie Review

Emily Blunt and Chris Evans push fentanyl in so-so Pain Hustlers

Anyone who’s paid attention to the news in the past decade knows the scourge that fentanyl has become in the United States, with a recent study determining that the drug now accounts for over half the overdose deaths in the U.S., almost 43,000 in 2020 alone. But while the drug is now dangerous because it’s laced in other street drugs like heroin, the roots of the crisis started in the pharmaceutical world, as detailed in the new Netflix film, Pain Hustlers.

Set in 2011 and based on a true story, the film focuses on a fictional company called Zanna Therapeutics, which sells the fentanyl-based drug, Lonafen. Owned by Dr. Jack Neel (Andy Garcia), the company is on the verge of bankruptcy until one of its top sales reps, Pete Brenner (Chris Evans), decides to hire Liza Drake (Emily Blunt), a down-on-her-luck single mom who most recently worked at a strip club.

Liza’s panache and Pete’s willingness to bend the rules soon has them convincing people like Dr. Lydell (Brian d’Arcy James) to start prescribing Lonafen to his cancer patients, the only people approved by the FDA to receive the medication. Naturally, it’s not long before greed has everyone at Zanna crossing even more ethical and legal lines, and convincing doctors to prescribe the drug “off-label” to non-cancer patients.

Directed by David Yates and written by Wells Tower from the book by Evan Hughes, the film has the familiar structure of a lot of boom-and-bust companies: 1) The failing company finds unexpected success. 2) That success goes to the heads of most of those involved, leading them to do anything in their power to maintain that success. 3) Those efforts result in either significant legal or financial straits, causing their downfall.

While there’s nothing all that surprising about what happens in general in the story, the personal details help make it interesting. The story is mostly told from the perspective of Liza, who tells herself that she’s working for Zanna for all the right reasons, to help people in pain and to help her and her daughter, Phoebe (Chloe Coleman), escape poverty. But the faster success comes, the more she has to compromise her values and the less she can make that claim.

Yates also occasionally uses a gimmick of characters talking to the camera in faux interviews as if they were in a documentary. Unfortunately, the placement of these sequences is haphazard at best, and the information gleaned from the confessionals doesn’t add much to the story as a whole. He might have been better off trying to go a little deeper into the lives of those affected by the malfeasance instead of giving more time to those perpetrating it.

When the story falters, the level of acting in the film picks it up for the most part. Blunt makes for an empathetic lead, even when she’s doing questionable things. Evans has had tough sledding since leaving the Marvel world, and even though he’s not fantastic here, he has some decent moments. Catherine O’Hara pops up as Liza’s mom and also puts in nice work.

Pain Hustlers could have used more depth and originality than it has, but it still deserves credit for shining a light on a problem that’s only gotten worse since the time depicted in the film. Addiction can come from many places, but this film shows that craven actions by pharmaceutical companies and doctors only exacerbated the problem.

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Pain Hustlers debuts on Netflix on October 27.

Photo by Brian Douglas/Netflix

Chris Evans, Andy Garcia, and Emily Blunt in Pain Hustlers.

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Vinyl Record News

Dallas record store chain Josey Records opens location in Garland

Josey Records

Vinyl at Josey Records

Dallas music maker Josey Records has extended its reach east: The record store chain, whose empire includes one of the largest single independent record stores in the U.S., has opened a location in Garland, at 1005 Northwest Hwy., at the intersection of Centerville Road, where it's selling its trademark assortment of vinyl records, CDs, cassettes, turntables, music posters, new releases, and music accessories.

This is the sixth location and the third in the Dallas area, joining the original in Farmers Branch which owners Waric Cameron and Luke Sardello opened in November 2014. They've since opened locations in Plano, Tulsa, Kansas City, and Vidalia, Missouri.

The original location is a giant place with 16,000 square feet devoted to vinyl, 45s, CDs, turntables, and T-shirts. They do a good job showcasing new releases and collector vinyl — they made CultureMap's list of 5 best places in Dallas to buy vinyl records — and are known to host album release and listening parties such as a recent blockbuster celebrating Linkin Park.

They made headlines in June 2020 when they acquired the vast musical inventory of Bill’s Records following the death of owner Bill Wisener; Cameron and Sardello both worked at Bill’s, and knew the sprawling collection first-hand.

"It has taken us years to even start going through it, but in last two years, we've made some headway," Cameron says. "Bill's has its own audience, so we created a specific Instagram account, just for Bill's Records merchandise called @billsrecordsvault."

They chose Garland because they saw it as an area that was under-served.

"There are very few record stores in that area of northeast Dallas, Casa View, Garland, Rockwall, Mesquite," Cameron says. "We have customers who live over there, so it seemed like a good place for a store."

The storefront they're in was most recently The Music Store, which sold and rented musical instruments and accessories; but coincidentally, it's next to an address that was once RPM Records, a hip record store from the '90s.

The Garland store follows the same model as their others: selling new and used records and merchandise, and buying used goods, as well.

"One thing that's cool is that each location takes on its own identity," he says. "We buy used CDs, vinyl records, cassettes — we're a used resale business — and what we buy from our customers dictates what that store becomes. For example, our Plano store has a lot of classic rock. So we're looking forward to seeing what Garland gravitates to."

Garland does have one thing that the other locations do not.

"Right now, Garland has this incredible collection of jazz," Cameron says. "We bought a great collection of jazz records — someone called and wanted to sell it. We get that a lot, we buy major collections from all over the U.S., we even make house calls. So we saved it for the Garland store."