This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movie being covered here wouldn’t exist.
“We would like to congratulate drugs on winning the war on drugs.”
Disclaimer: Mentions of drug abuse.
The aforementioned “war on drugs” began in 1971 when American President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse as “public enemy number one.” Since then, the effort to battle drug abuse and distribution has been centered on all kinds of illegal narcotics. From marijuana to cocaine to crack, the war on drugs has been an ongoing pursuit with no end in sight – with drugs, and those who create and sell them, winning. In the past and today, people like Pablo Escobar are who you think of when you think of a drug kingpin. Someone rolling around in ridiculous amounts of money, living in lavish homes, and creating heinous crimes in the pursuit of making millions.
This is the imagery used in Netflix’s Painkiller, only it isn’t Pablo Escobar or John Gotti or even Tony Soprano that the show is about. Instead, the six-part miniseries is about Purdue Pharma. In 1995, Purdue Pharma introduced OxyContin to the market. A mixture of oxycodone hydrochloride, OxyContin has been widely pointed to as the surge of the opioid crisis in America. A highly addictive drug, it has been known as the “poor man’s heroin” and is known today as an incredibly potent pill that should not be prescribed for just any pain management treatment.
However, Purdue Pharma wanted people to use it for any ache or pain. Now, this review is not tackling Purdue Pharma, but rather the new miniseries from Netflix. With actors and a loosely put-together storyline, Painkiller attempts to bet the Wolf of Wall Street of Netflix, but doesn’t exactly hit the mark. Whereas the previously mentioned movie was made primarily to entertain, this series is meant to inform. Each episode starts with a loved one of someone who has died from opioid addiction and is narrated by Uzo Aduba, who plays Edie Flowers. We have bright, loud, outrageous scenes depicting the debauchery that is Purdue Pharma’s sales culture, while also having the sad stories of a family man getting hurt and subsequently addicted to OxyContin. There’s two different tales here and they don’t always mix well.
Painkiller probably would have been better as just a documentary. To have testimonials from loved ones, as well as real-life footage from the time period, and interviews from those who attempted to take Purdue Pharma down would have hit home a lot better than this disjointed miniseries. Unfortunately, and I am pretty confident in saying this; everyone knows someone who has fallen victim to opioids. Did we really need Matthew Broderick to play Richard Sackler to understand how soulless he and the rest of these people were? Couldn’t we have had, instead, real-life people telling us how over-the-counter pharmaceuticals led to a lifetime of pain and suffering? Could we not have had former Purdue Pharma employees telling us of what they saw with their own eyes and the horrible marketing schemes placed by this company in order to sell their narcotics? These were glorified drug dealers and it could have hit home a lot harder as a documentary, as opposed to a miniseries.
That is not to say that the show does not do some good in its six episodes. The story of Taylor Kitsch as Glen Kryger perfectly encapsulates how a normal person could go from being a good father and a good husband to forsaking all that he loved just to get some OxyContin. His story humanizes the addiction – this was not a man who was looking to get high. He was hurt at work, recklessly prescribed medication, and his body demanded more. This was a recklessness not only by the doctors, but Purdue Pharma, who had their sales reps pushing OxyContin as if they were selling tires. It is certainly a sad and depressing thing to watch.
However, it isn’t like anyone in the show gives a particularly groundbreaking performance. Realistically, you could have gotten anyone to play these roles and the message would have been the same. While it is surmised that the scenes with Purdue Pharma’s sales reps are meant to anger you, it does not mean that you enjoy seeing them onscreen. To spend so much time on people who are so callously pushing OxyContin onto doctors and showing how everyone is a scumbag is not what this show needed. It needs real voices and real scenes to really drive the message home. This did not happen a hundred years ago. It happened a little more than thirty years ago and is still happening now. People still die from opioid addictions and people every day are becoming addicted from simple things like back injuries and now turn to harder drugs like heroin and fentanyl because of what was started in 1995.
The acting, the story, and the visuals in Painkiller are frankly forgettable. Considering Hulu came out with Dopesick only two years ago that covered essentially the same thing, did Netflix need their own version? If you want to watch something on Netflix in relation to the opioid crisis, you are better off watching the far superior The Pharmacist. It’s a much better documentary series that really drives home what crooked pharmacies do in order to push opioids on people.
Painkiller is currently available to stream on Netflix.
The acting, the story, and the visuals in Painkiller are frankly forgettable. Considering Hulu came out with Dopesick only two years ago that covered essentially the same thing, did Netflix need their own version? If you want to watch something on Netflix in relation to the opioid crisis, you are better off watching the far superior The Pharmacist. It's a much better documentary series that really drives home what crooked pharmacies do in order to push opioids on people.
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Rating
A girl with too many fandoms to count.
