Pain Hustlers (2023)

Streaming Now on Netflix

Rating: 5.7

Pain Hustlers wants to be The Wolf Of Wall Street of pharmaceutical drug sales but it comes off as a pale imitation. It’s refreshing to see David Yates free of the Harry Potter world for a change (even though he’s not that great outside of it - frankly he’s just not a great director) and Emily Blunt gives it her all but I mostly found this to be unfunny and superficial.

Chris Evans needs a better agent… maybe he should just go back to being Captain America…

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Premise: Liza dreams of a better life for herself and her daughter. Hired to work for a bankrupt pharmaceutical company, Liza skyrockets with sales and into the high life, putting her in the middle of a federal criminal conspiracy.

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Netflix

Directed by David Yates

Screenplay by Wells Tower

Based on the book by Evan Hughes

Cast: Chris Evans, Emily Blunt, Andy Garcia, Cathrine O’Hara, Chloe Coleman, Brian D’Arcy James, Jay Duplass

Runtime: 2hr 2min

Rating: 14A

Crime, Drama

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IMDb Rating: 6.5/10

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 23%

RT Audience Score: 70%

RT Critic Average: 4.8/10

RT Audience Average: 3.7/5

Metacritic Score: 44

Letterboxd: 2.8/5

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Fun Fact: David Yates' third film outside the Harry Potter franchise, after The Tichborne Claimant (1998) and The Legend of Tarzan (2016).