I wasn’t planning to review this movie at all but I think it’s important to discuss a few points about the movie and the absurdity in the filmmaking today.

The movie Pain Hustlers is based on the 2022 book written by Evan Hughes and is directed by David Yates. The story is based on a real life incident when a startup called Insys (owned by John Kapoor) launched its pain reliever spray and earned huge profits out of it. The company is called Zanna in the movie and is portrayed to be owned by John Neel (played by Andy García). But, the movie plot focuses on a medicine that the company made and promoted through doctors through whatever means possible. The medicine in question is a fentanyl spray that was originally recommended only for the terminally ill patients due to its addiction rate. Now, the movie could have adopted a decent screenplay, something similar to the movie Dark Waters where the serious tone of the movie was apt due to its subject matter. The movie Pain Hustlers chose a different path. The movie is projected in two different tones, comedy and emotional drama. Unfortunately, the movie still fails at both levels.

To my surprise, I saw that a few critics praised the first half of the movie while getting disappointed only with its second half. I must say that the critical analysis of the movie has also failed at many levels. The reason why I am pointing this out is due to the fact that only some of us seem to understand the absurdity of the influence of the American Psychological Association (APA) on Hollywood movies. In order to reduce gore and violence, the inclusion of sexual innuendo in a movie has become a common practice. Now, my objection is not only limited to that. When portrayal of sex is portrayed as sex, it is still fine. My clear objection is to the fact that a movie hides these intentions in the name of comedy. While a teenage comedy is a different beast and use of such tactics might work, it becomes trickier when it comes to dealing with serious subject matters.

The first half of the movie is a piece of Farce packaged in the name of dark humor where over-the-top scenes are unnecessarily being shown. The second half of the movie tries to compensate for that but fails due to the mismatch in the style of storytelling leaving intellectual critics only to praise the first half of the movie. By any means, in reality, both half of the movie are a piece of crap served to the audience in the name of dark humor. The kind of humor that is being served to us in the name of dark comedy nowadays needs a serious relook. Hollywood is keen on losing its grip on it but as a critic, we should not shy away from our duty to pinpoint these mistakes. Even a filmmaker like Martin Scorcese with his Wolf of Wall Street has been a victim of this propaganda. If you’re a non-American, you would know the term “American Humor” that fits this description. It’s no surprise for me to see that “American Humor” is getting foolish day by day and losing its lustre but the disturbing aspect is that Hollywood has a lot of influence over other movie industries such as Hindi or European cinema and watching most of them has become a pain.