Emily Blunt And Chris Evans Lead Netflix’s New True Crime Film Pain Hustlers

30th January 2023 | By Rufus Punt

True crime is the genre that keeps giving: whether it’s series about high-profile crimes like The Whitehouse Plumbers, or unbelievable documentaries like Gunther’s Millions or Bad Vegan, it seems there’s an endless list of real-world stories that keep us captivated to the end. If you’re like us, then you’ll be excited to hear that Netflix is developing a true crime film, Pain Hustlers, which stars Emily Blunt and Chris Evans and is based on a real-life case reported on in New York Times Magazine.

All we know about Netflix’s Pain Hustlers

Blunt, star of The Mary Poppins and The English leads the cast as Liza, plays a high school dropout with seemingly few life prospects. She manages to get herself a new job working for a pharmaceutical start-up in a mall in Florida mall. Suddenly she fined herself paid well and respected by her colleagues, and for the first time, her life is looking up. If only it was that simple – she soon discovers that she’d become wrapped up in a criminal conspiracy with potentially damaging consequences to her new life.

The original Pain Hustlers piece in NYT Magazine told the story of “the opioid that made a fortune for its maker”, and concerned the pharmaceutical company Insys Therapeutics, based in Arizona and with only one branded product- a painkiller called Subsys. The medication was highly potent and cashed in on the growing opioid epidemic in the US by convincing and paying doctors to prescribe and vouch for their product. Subsys had a seriously addictive effect on patients, and the company’s founder was eventually arrested, resulting in Insys’ bankruptcy. The Netflix film adapts the original article and its author Evan Hughes’ subsequent novel The Hard Sell.

Pain Hustlers releases on Netflix on 27th October
For more on the latest flicks, check out our January streaming guide.


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