David Yates takes time out from being the in-house director of the Fantastic Beasts films with a formulaic, factually based drama on a subject that has already been thoroughly explored by other, more serious-minded movies, documentaries and television series: America’s opioid crisis and the cynical workings of big pharma. Using the accessible but now rather tired device of cutting faux documentary interviews with key characters into a conventional piece of storytelling (see also I, Tonya), the film is a loosely fictionalised version of the Insys Therapeutics scandal. What’s novel here is that the film focuses not on the victims of the aggressively mis-sold cancer pain medication at the core of the story, but on the team of ambitious, money-hungry drug reps and company execs who will stop at nothing to hawk their product to unscrupulous doctors.
It’s predictable but glossily watchable. The main redeeming feature is the crackling charisma of Emily Blunt, in the central role of a down-on-her-luck single mum turned pharma marketing genius.
In select cinemas now; on Netflix from 27 October
