STREAMING REVIEWS: Bad pharma & revisiting X-Files

Here are two recent drops that touch on topics we’ve already seen addressed. One is about bad pharma (yet again!), while the second is like a Gen-Z X-Files.

Pain Hustlers (Netflix USA) - This could be an example of how the streaming channel’s algorithm will have them repeatedly drawing from the same well, even when it’s empty. Bad Pharma and the opiod crisis have been done several times over. Dopesick was on another streaming platform, and we saw Netflix immediately jump on that bandwagon. Even the Flanagan adaptation of Poe’s House of Usher replaced the source material’s incest with bad pharma, and now we get this attempt to humanize the Fentanyl story. We achieve this via the story of Liza Drake, a single mother who was just out to support her daughter and found out she was good at selling, and doing so for a mediocre drug company that was ready to cut corners with their ‘revolutionary’ medicine.

It’s sad to see the excellent cast of Emily Blunt, Chris Evans, and Andy Garcia working with a noted Director such as David Yates (several Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts films) but bogged down by an uneven screenplay and subject matter that feels tired and dated. Emily Blunt is watchable and the best thing here, but even she can’t keep this sinking ship afloat. Chris Evans surprised us with Knives Out by taking on a character we’d dislike; here, it looks like he’s just doing the same thing without giving his portrayal any texture or nuance - enough with the anti-Captain America stance. It’s now become too predictable. Honestly, one can do better than watching this film. Head back to Dopesick if you really want to watch a story of Bad Pharma unfold.

Monsters of California (Amazon Prime on Demand) - Here’s a film that could quickly have fallen through the cracks and been ignored; but the fact that there’s ‘Directed and co-written by Blink 182’s Tom deLonge’ has sparked interest among music fans of this seminal rock band. A confessed UFO fanatic, deLonge takes that obsession to task, as the film takes a band of young boys on a voyage of self-discovery amidst strange occurrences, the supernatural and the other-worldly. It’s an X-Files mish-mash of all these elements and a coming-of-age tale filled with teenage angst and disappearing Dad issues. Does it all work, though? Let’s find out!

Dallas (Jack Samson), Riley (Jared Scott), and Toe (Jack Lancaster) are the gang of three that we follow, with Dallas the best drawn of the three. He’s the one with a military father who inexplicably disappeared. Kelly (Gabrielle Haugh) is the love interest, and Meg (Camille Kostek) is Dallas’ sister. Right off, one criticism one can level on deLonge is that the women are mere cut-out non-characters, just there for the guys to look normal or to say he did cast women. They don’t contribute to the narrative at all. If I were brutally honest, the film's tone is never quite established, and deLonge seems to have bitten off more than he can chew. Back to music and touring, please!