MOVIE REVIEW – Revealing the dark history of the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma, “Painkiller” provides an in-depth look at the forces behind the OxyContin epidemic. It explores the devastating intertwining of greed and ego, while pharmaceutical depravity is laid bare. The series is a powerful portrayal of how this tragic chapter in the American health care system unfolded, but sometimes its powerful message is dulled by over-the-top visuals or kitschy scenes.

The choice of Painkiller series is to show what the Sackler family and their allies knowingly did, rather than why. After all, not all villains have their own origin story. In this relentless, riveting and consistently shocking series, the blood of the American health care system is on its hands, and everyone involved is responsible. Both greed and ego emerge as destructive forces that drove the Purdue Pharma executives who made billions on OxyContin through tricky marketing. Marketers sold a drug they didn’t fully understand, doctors overdosed the drug to get more from insurers, and government agencies approved the practice instead of effective regulation.

Contempt for corruption and unscrupulousness

Painkiller effortlessly and almost reflexively dispenses its contempt for corrupt doctors and unscrupulous distributors, just as the doctors unthinkingly prescribed Oxy, causing justifiable disgust and hatred in the viewer. Though the series sometimes overdoes it with Adam McKay-style, fourth-wall-breaking dialogue, or overly literal musical interludes and B-roll shots, the rage emanating from Painkiller still feels justified, and the decision not to feel sympathy for the guilty is the right one. This is a story about pain that wants to inflict pain itself, and this decision feels like a cleansing ritual that is entirely justified.

Watching Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster’s new six-part Netflix series, it’s no wonder you get a sense of déjà vu, considering Danny Strong’s Emmy-winning Hulu miniseries Dopesick – also about the OxyContin epidemic – premiered just two years ago. Although the two works draw from different sources, they both depict the same period in American history. Many of the same characters are presented: the same Sackler family members, Purdue Pharma employees and government officials are featured, and a similarly central role is given to an injured worker who relies increasingly on Oxy, all as a symbol of the drug’s human toll. Both series trace how Purdue Pharma developed this opioid – a morphine-like compound twice as powerful as heroin – while ignoring its addictive properties. When the drug’s abuse escalated, the company deflected responsibility and was able to evade prosecution time and again.

Anything for a quick buck!

But what Painkiller highlights most is that everyone involved in making and selling the drug – which was touted as “first and last” for pain patients and easily duped doctors – was caught up in their own spiral of addiction, American capitalism-style: getting drunk on quickly acquired wealth, spending unbridled and selfishly, hiding behind charity and manipulated science to maintain fame, and taking whatever steps were necessary to get the next dose. All executives, doctors, lawyers and salesmen are flawed, and Painkiller focuses the blame on these actors with a consistent and devastating focus. Not all villains have an origin story. Painkiller’s conscious decision to show what the Sackler family and their allies knowingly did, rather than why they did it, is consistent with the overall point of the series: that the deep-rooted corruption in the US pharmaceutical industry is also damaging several other areas of commerce.

Painkiller uses subplots and character arcs that jump between the 20th and 21st centuries to reveal an intertwining web of harm and error. The series acknowledges that it contains a good deal of fiction, but the most shocking details, particularly the account of Purdue Pharma’s steps to defend itself, come from the New Yorker article that forms one of the basis of the series. The testimony of lawyer and investigator Edie Flowers (Uzo Aduba) serves as the leitmotif: she deeply condemns and despises the Sacklers. In Painkiller, she shows how Arthur Sackler (Clark Gregg), a doctor, built the family empire through shady business practices over decades, and how his nephew Richard Sackler (Matthew Broderick) continued the work by adapting a life-ending painkiller called Oxy, which the company recommended for a range of ailments, from arthritis to back pain. Flowers gives a hard and relentless account of how Purdue Pharma recruited young people (represented here by Dina Shihabi and West Duchovny) to persuade doctors to prescribe the drug, and how it targeted federal agencies, especially the FDA, who all but ignored their duty to evaluate the effects of Oxy.

While Flowers’ testimony reveals the background to the spread of Oxy, Painkiller also reveals the people who prescribe the drug and become addicted to it, highlighting the story of mechanic Glen Kryger (Taylor Kitsch). Painkiller is at times unbearably difficult to watch: teenagers overdosing in their parents’ backyard, a too-tall Glen brushing his teeth so hard he spits out a piece of blood, or a medical autopsy doctor finding half a dozen undigested pills in a corpse. However, the series handles these scenes with care, to leave the viewer with an even more jarring and desperate feeling.

Everyday heroes against the monsters

Director Peter Berg uses Patrick Radden Keefe’s 2017 article “A family building an empire of pain” and Barry Meier’s 2018 book to portray the lives of the people who work in this country every day. In a series called “Painkiller”, he shows them as heroes and martyrs. The performances of Kitsch, Aduba and John Ales are the soul of the series, showing the consequences of the long-standing criminality committed by Purdue Pharma.

The acting is excellent (Matthew Broderick is once again brilliant, reminding us of his performance in “A Promenade to Pleasure”, only this time as the “visionary” medical guru). Fitzerman-Blue and Harpster, however, masterfully weave together the social and economic aspects of the series, creating a strong and meaningful core for “Painkiller”, sometimes overshadowed by excessive cinematography and editing effects. There are kitschy moments, such as the dusty graphics of the Sackler family name, and the series is exhausting, even tedious, when it adopts the tactics of films based on real events, such as The Big Bang and The Wolf of Wall Street.

I get the feeling that the creative team didn’t trust the power of Purdue Pharma’s story, so they try to make the story more exciting with spectacular scenes and tacky visual elements (e.g. salespeople having sex with a giant Oxy pill plush at a company retreat).

But “Painkiller” doesn’t need these tricks. The villains – such as the emotionless Richard played by Broderick or the smiling Ned Van Zandt as Rudy Giuliani – and the crimes they commit are sufficiently creepy and fascinating in themselves, and the series’ maximalist approach often seems excessive. With its topical, avoidable national tragedy and the excellent performances that go with it, Painkiller is like Oxy’s own timed-release mechanism: the effect is killer and lasting.

-BadSector-