BAD PHARMA, WORSE KARMA? (PAINKILLER)
It's been hard for TV and film executives to resist dramas about the opioid crisis.
According to the Lancet last year, over 600,000 people died over two decades in the US and Canada as a result of addiction to the pills used to treat pain.
The same article noted in England, while opioid prescriptions rose by 34% between 1998 and 2016, opioid related hospitalisations also increased by 48% between 2008 and 2018 at a cost of £137 million to the healthcare system.
In late 2021 Hulu and Disney+ responded to the scandal by making Danny Strong's miniseries 'Dopesick' which focused on Purdue Pharma's aggressive marketing of the highly addictive Oxycontin.
Starring Michael Keaton, Peter Sarsgaard, Rosario Dawson, Will Poulter, Michael Stuhlbarg and Kaitlyn Dever, the eight part miniseries set a very high bar for any other film or television series about the scandal to clear.
Nevertheless Netflix has weighed in with not just one but two projects.
Before that the streamer delivered 'Painkiller' in August - actor-director Peter Berg and writers Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster's take on the Purdue Pharma story.
Commissioned just before 'Dopesick' hit people's screens and hoovered up a lot of Golden Globe, SAG and Emmy awards, Fitzerman-Blue and Harpster's miniseries was always going to be judged against that show.
Traversing the same territory, 'Painkiller' casts Matthew Broderick as Purdue chief Richard Sackler - played in 'Dopesick' so effectively by everyone's go to person for sociopath roles these days, Michael Stuhlbarg.
However it's Uzo Aduba's federal investigator Edie Flowers who really drives the narrative.
A fictional composite of several real life investigators, Flowers is a gaming fanatic whose brother is in prison for drug dealing.
Noting the rise of opioids, she is shocked by the correlation between rising crime rates and rising levels of addiction to the legal drugs.
Edie is especially struck by the aggressive marketing of one opioid Oxycontin.
Digging deeper into Purdue Pharma's activities, she manages to persuades Tyler Ritter's US Attorney for the Western District of Virginia John L Brownlee to approve an investigation into the aggressive marketing of Oxycontin.
Under Richard Sackler's direction, Purdue employs an army of glamorous female sales executives to flatter mostly male doctors and pharmacists into prescribing and stocking their drug.
Into this shady world arrives West Duchovny's Shannon Schaeffer who is swiftly taken under the wing of Dina Shihabi's Purdue Artful Dodger, Britt.
Shannon is seduced by Britt's glamorous clothes, swish apartment and sleek sports car.
Very quickly Britt sends Shannon into battle, asking her to persuade physicians to prescribe what is purported to be a miracle drug and offering them inducements ranging from a cuddly blue pill soft toy to all expenses paid conferences in exotic locations.
Outlandish claims are made about Oxycontin's qualities.
However there's also a lot of evasiveness about its addictive qualities.
Purdue's profits soar as the grim reality of the drug's addictiveness are ignored.
When Edie and her fellow Federal investigators start to train their attention on Purdue's marketing claims and tactics, Richard Sackler and his fellow executives try to blow the probe off course using every means possible.
But will they succeed?
Like 'Dopesick,' Berg and his writers try to show the reality of opioid addiction - mostly concentrating on Taylor Kitsch's ordinary Joe, a garage owner called Glen Kryger.
Sustaining a serious back injury at work, the mechanic is prescribed Oxycontin and is initially delighted by the results.
However soon he requires stronger doses and he falls into addiction, destroying the nice suburban life he has with his wife Carolina Bartczak's Lily, his son Jack Mulhern's Tyler and their toddler.
'Painkiller's' big innovation, though, is beginning each episode with a piece to camera by families of real life victims of the opioid crisis.
Just like the BBC's recent Jimmy Savile drama 'The Reckoning,' this hammers home this is more than just a TV drama but an expose of real corporate greed.
Not only do the interviewa remind viewers of the fact that thousands of families across North America have been devastated by opioid deaths, it also shows how many people fell into addiction through medical treatment for pain relief.
As dramas about medical scandals go, 'Painkiller' undoubtedly has moments of real power.
However it's biggest problem is the inevitable comparisons and contrasting of iit to 'Dopesick' which outshines it on almost every level.
That's not to say 'Painkiller' is bad.
Far from it - it's well made, decently acted and effectively told.
It just doesn't hit the heights of the Disney+ and Hulu series.
While turning in a quirky performance, Broderick is completely outgunned by Stuhlbarg's 'Dopesick' depiction of Richard Sackler.
Kitsch certainly engages audience sympathies as the resident addict but he doesn't quite hit the heights of Kaitlyn Dever's performance in the other show.
Duchovny and Shihabi appall as the "Purdue Barbie" sales executives but they again don't navigate the moral quandaries in the way that Will Poulter and Philippa Soo do in Danny Strong's miniseries.
Uzo Aduba, however, is the show's MVP.
Burning with indignation, she turns in a performance that is more than a match for Peter Sarsgard, Rosario Dawson and John Hoogenakker's prosecutors and investigators in 'Dopesick'.
And while there is no equivalent of Michael Keaton's troubled doctor in Berg, Fitzerman-Blue and Harpster's show, there are some decent supporting performances by John Rothman as Richard Sackler's nervous uncle Mortimer, Sam Anderson as his other uncle Raymond and Ritter as Brownlee.
Mulhern and Bartczak provide sturdy support as members of the Kryger family.
The same is true for Brian Markinson as the Purdue executive Howard Udell and Ned Van Zandt as Rudy Giuliani who ended up advocating for... well, guess who.
Berg directs the miniseries with a real enthusiasm and verve.
A sequence in Florida at a Purdue celebration of its salesforce is gloriously tacky, with a particularly tin eared song about the company that gives it the air of a neon Nuremberg rally.
This sequence is particularly nauseating to watch.
However it is really intelligently shot and lit by cinematographer Brendan Steacy.
There are one or two narrative misfires, though, like the periodic device of firealarms going off in Richard Sackler's home which soon becomes tiresome.
There's also some rather unconvincing exchanges, presumably in Broderick's character's head, between Richard and his obnoxious dead father, Clark Gregg's Arthur over the handling of the company.
On its own terms, though, 'Painkiller' is a pretty decent telling of the opioid story.
It will stoke your sense of outrage and will have you baying for justice.
However when people think of a drama that effectively tackles the opioid scandal, they will inevitably think of 'Dopesick' despite the best efforts of Berg, Fitzerman-Blue, Harpster, Aduba and Kitsch.
It's a good drama. It just isn't excellent.
(All episodes of 'Painkiller' were made available for streaming to Netflix subscribers on August 10, 2023)
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