Tag Archives: Emily Blunt

Netflix Movie Review: Pain Hustlers

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With outstanding series like Dopesick (Hulu) and Painkiller(Netflix) currently streaming, it is no surprise that the new movie “Pain Hustlers” the true story about the salespeople of Insys Pharmaceutical who lied, bribed doctors, and sold dangerous pain-killing drugs that killed so many people has been released on Netflix.

Pain Hustlers stars Emily Blunt as Liza Drake a down-and-out single mother with a daughter, living in the garage of her sister with her mother. Liza seems to have no chance to lift her life out of the hole it’s in until she interviews with a failing Pharmaceutical company named InSys. Even though Liza is completely unqualified and has no college degree, she is hired by her interviewer Pete Brenner, played by Chris Evans himself, adding made-up qualifications to Liza’s resume. At the beginning of this true story, nobody can blame Liza from trying to escape from her poor squalor nowhere life into trying to sell doctors a highly effective pain killing cancer drug and making commissions that eventually became 600 thousand for one year.

The problem with situations like this is greed. Within this true story, it was also the insanity and greed of the CEO of the company Dr. Neel, played by Andy Garcia. As soon as sales flattened for the pain-killing drug that was only created for cancer patients, Neel demanded that they “go off the label” and bribe doctors to prescribe the drug for all pain. Soon after this, some people started to die of overdoses. What is most amazing about this true story is the blatant disregard to the rules set by the FDA, with the desire for so much money that all involved ignored the possibility of going to jail for many years because what they were doing for so long was against the law.

The other player in this opioid pain killing disaster is the company Purdue Pharmaceutical, the subject of the great Hulu series Dopesick (reviewed in this blog). Due to the greed of this now-bankrupt company, tens of thousands of Americans died from drug overdoses caused by Purdue’s main painkilling drug OxyContin. Purdue is now bankrupt as of 2022 as is Insys in 2019 and this also included jail time for the CEO and all the executives of this company.

For reasons unknown, the critics on Rotten Tomatoes are rating this very good Netflix movie only 22%. This is dead wrong, with my rating of 80% for a solid look at the reality of what people will do for money.

Movie Review: Jungle Cruise

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Some years ago, some Disney executive probably said, “Why can’t we combine the African Queen with Raiders of the Lost Ark?” From this one idea the odds are pretty high that the new movie starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, called “Jungle Cruise” was created. The problem is that this movie was probably made as a vehicle for two of the hottest actors right now, rather than writing a great story first and then getting the actors later. I could be wrong, but after seeing Jungle Cruise this sure seemed like the most likely scenario.

The start of this story seemed so familiar with the start of “Raiders Of the Lost Ark”, in this case there is a disease curing leaf of an impossible to find tree, somewhere in the jungle. Dr. Lily Houghton, played by Emily Blunt has to travel to the Amazon and rent a boat, captained by Frank Wolff, played by Dwayne Johnson. Once they meet, this entire movie is an excuse to create one action scene after another – and it all seems like we have seen this many times before. There is nothing new here, nothing memorable. This is not a bad movie, but definitely not a good enough movie to recommend, despite the special effects that at times were good.

I agree with the low 63% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and rate this film a pass.

Movie Review: A Quiet Place Part II

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In the history of movie science fiction, in my opinion the Matrix series had the best scientific concepts. Using human beings as batteries, an alternate world where people have to plug into a computer to see the world as it really is, excellent special effects of robots attacking humans and karate sequences. All of these ideas are great and spawned 3 movies, ending in 2003.

“A Quiet Place”, released in 2018 and now the sequel “A Quest Place Part 2”, released originally in 2020 and delayed until 2021 – has the second best movie science fiction concepts in movie history. Aliens from another planet have invaded Earth and they kill anything that makes a sound – a great an original idea that results in film that has very little dialogue and a high level of terror. With both movies, the special effects with these insane looking alien creatures is outstanding, as is the acting, most especially with the main character Evelyn Abbot, played by Emily Blunt. The good thing about this sequel is that the movie starts by showing the invasion of the aliens of the small town that occurred before the beginning of the first movie. However, the big flaw I found in this sequel is that in a situation where Evelyn Abbot has an infant child and two young children younger than 13, why are there so many scenes where all of them are separated? In real life, nothing like this would ever happen. Most especially in a scene where Evelyn leaves her injured 12 year old son and infant alone so she can collect more supplies. This makes absolutely no sense and lacks any level of common sense. Screenwriting is an extremely challenging art form because a story has to be plausible and entertaining at the same time.

This movie also stars Djimon Hounsou and Cillian Murphy in excellent supporting roles.

Despite the flaws, I mostly agree with the critics who give this sequel some very high ratings, mostly for the brilliant concept and the excellent special effects with the rampaging aliens who can kill humans so easily.