Starring: Gary Oldman, Armie Hammer, Evangeline Lilly, Greg Kinnear, Michelle Rodriguez, Luke Evans, Lily-Rose Depp, Veronica Ferres, Scott Mescudi, Indira Varma, Martin Donovan, Mira Kirshner, Nicholas Jarecki
Distributor: Universal Pictures International
Runtime: 118 mins. Reviewed in Mar 2021
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The 20th century has had more than enough crises. The crisis at the centre of this drama, both entertaining and challenging for an adult audience, is the current American dependence on opioids.
Writer-director (previous crisis drama concerned the world of business and corruption, Arbitrage) has decided to highlight the complexity of the crisis by telling three interconnecting stories. At the centre is the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), its investigations, and stings. Along with this story of investigators and dealers, there is the story of laboratory research, especially concerning painkillers, and more especially, that they do not become addictive, research feeling the pressure of the corporations who manufacture the drugs. And, the screenplay also operates on a personal level, with the mysterious death of a teenage boy and his mother’s search for the truth and revenge. (Some have complained that this is too much material, the three stories – but those who find the film interesting will be satisfied with its interconnections and intricacies.)
DEA agent Jake Kelly (Hammer) has dealings with Armenian underworld criminals, drug transporters, with manufacturers of illicit drugs in Montréal, a big boss who owns a club and goes under the name of Mother, immersed in a world of harsh realities, informants, corrupt customs officials, unscrupulous criminals for whom murder is not a difficulty. He walks a tightrope, working with agents and supervisors (Rodriguez plays his boss, Supervisor Garrett, while the film’s director (Jarecki) is his assistant, Stanley Foster.) Anything could go wrong – and frequently does. Kelly also has the pressure of an addicted sister (Depp) who defies her brother and is a source of anguish to their mother.
With the research narrative, the focus is on Dr Tyrone Brower (Oldman), who lectures at the University but also supervises laboratory investigations and experiments, with substantial grants from the university and from the drug corporations, discovering that an experiment for a non-addictive painkiller works for four weeks but, after that, it becomes addictive. This aspect becomes a whistle-blower story, with a crisis of conscience for Brower, but pressure from the Dean of the University (Kinnear). There is also the pressure from the manufacturing company, board meetings, self-congratulations at success in producing the drug, unwillingness to face the uncertainties of the experimentation, willingness to go ahead, and financial considerations in play. The company chief Dr Meg Holmes (Ferres) is tough with an even tougher go-to man, Dr Bill Simons (Evans) who has no difficulty in apply strong-arm tactics and psychological pressure when required..
Claire Reimann (Lilly) is the mother in the personal story. An intense woman who knows her own failings, wants to save her son and his sports ambitions at school. When she finds that he is dead from an overdose, she sets out to find his school connections, hires a private detective, and becomes mixed up with the DEA investigation but warned off.
A film like this with its entangled threads of narrative cannot have a simple resolution. What of the DEA sting? What of the dealers? What of the professor and his truth? What of the relentlessness of the corporations? And what of the bereaved mother?
Peter Malone MSC
12 Random Films…
