I'll say this, I love the title of this movie, Pain Hustlers. I think it fits perfectly. Emily Blunt and Chris Evans together in a movie on Netflix. Some big names and a cool concept for the film.
The movie tells us the story of a character, Eliza, who dreams of a better life for herself and her daughter. Hired to work for a bankrupt pharmaceutical company, she skyrockets with sales and into the high life, putting her in the middle of a federal criminal conspiracy.
I think it's important to note that the movie is rated R. There's foul language, sexual content, nudity. This is from director David Yates, who brought us most of the Harry Potter movies. This is the first time in a while he's done something outside of the Harry Potter universe since the Legend of Tarzan. This is the type of movie that could take the skill set of Chris Evans, allow him to do something different.
We're used to Evans being the hero, but in this movie, he's this kind of scumbag pharmaceutical rep. He comes in at the beginning of the movie. You don't know if he's being serious or not, but he makes this job offer to Emily Blunt's character, who is down, as down as she could be, and she's just looking for something to help out herself and her daughter.
I love the relationship between her and her daughter in this movie, and I thought both performances were great. Chloe Coleman plays Phoebe. She works really well with Blunt when they're on screen.
Now, I will say, the movie kind of puts their relationship on the back burner and does focus on that Evans-Blunt relationship just a bit more, which I believe was a mistake. That is the less compelling storyline, and Evans is the less compelling character. He does a nice job.
Remember what he did in Knives Out (for those who have watched the movie), but his character doesn't get a lot of fleshing out in this movie. There's really no depth there at all.
It's just a good performance, a guy that's there, and he often has conversations with Emily Blunt. It often involves him being maniacal or crazy or just trying to be obsessive when it comes to money, and that's okay, but I do wish we could have explored him. I would've loved to know something more about him other than his attitude, and we didn't get that.
Now, Blunt, as Liza, she's not qualified for the job that she gets, and it really doesn't have anything to do with her background or the history of what she knows about these drugs or not. Blunt does a great job in this film, but it does also feel like they sort of rush through a few parts of those storylines, especially when we get to the third act. I mean, the beginning is really focused on building all of this up; this company, everybody becoming successful.
They'll throw people under the bus. I was sort of hoping that they would take the viewers along throughout the movie but at some point they failed to achieve this. And then you get a tiny perspective into some of the victims, the people that do end up getting addicted to these drugs, and a little insight into their stories, but it also feels like that's included to fill time instead of actually give us more to those specific stories, so I like the idea of having that in this film.
But it does also feel jumbled the way that they throw that in and detract from a story with Emily Blunt's character and her daughter that is really interesting, and there's something going on with her daughter that she has to end up paying for by the time we get to the end of the film. I like that a lot. I like when we go back to that, but again, we're not going back to that often enough for it to make a huge difference, a huge impact on the story until the end, but at the end, it just kind of rushes through everything.
It's like they tried building up to something that was going to be monumental, and at some point they succeeded in this, but it takes like 10 minutes to kind of go through it all. You can't help but to be a little captivated specifically from the performances, which are great, but it's also one of those typical rise and fall stories where you know exactly where it's going from the beginning, so it's not about the destination here. It's more so about the journey, and the journey feels rushed as we get to the end, and the focus just isn't really there at the beginning. I can't say I had a bad time while watching it, though.
The movie does provide entertainment, some nice performances, some surprising performances. Catherine O'Hara, Andy Garcia, they're not surprising.
They're solid, as they always are, but I just feel like there's something missing from this film that could have elevated it to the next level. Instead, it just feels like another Netflix real-life crime drama type of movie.
Pain Hustlers is entertaining enough, but there's a lack of focus that makes this story feel like a missed opportunity. The build-up features great performances, but the finale is familiar and rushed. I just feel like it lacks the style that it strives for. I'll give the movie 6/10.
