Films can be interesting time capsules of historical moments or can at least represent what movie studios think an audience is interested in. Right now, there seems to be a belief that we really want to know how the opioid crisis, which kill 136 Americans a day, came to be. Netflix, most recently, came out with the fictional series “Painkiller,” looking at the topic and, in October, will release “Pain Hustlers,” a fictionalized exploration of a drug company that foisted opioids on doctors for personal gain.
“Pain Hustlers” is a weird look into the topic, with long-time “Harry Potter” director David Yates at the helm to tell a story with heavy shades of Martin Scorsese’s “Wolf of Wall Street” and Craig Gillespie’s “I, Tonya.”