Painkiller

In later episodes, “Painkiller” at times veers into heavy-handed messaging, as we see how the respective main storylines play out as a kind of morality play. Still, this is an invaluable and at times heartbreakingly effective piece of work.

A propulsive and compulsively watchable evisceration of the company that created a nationwide crisis.

Through its comprehensive recounting of a still-timely, avoidable national tragedy and the effective performances that complement those realities, Painkiller operates like Oxy’s own time-release mechanism. Its devastation lingers.

This Netflix limited series manages to stand on its own. At six episodes, compared to eight for “Dopesick,” “Painkiller” tells its story with more expediency.

Aduba comes to enraged life as she describes the sins of the Sackler family for the firm in the present day. Flowers in flashback – as she digs deeper with her investigations – is riveting; tough, disbelieving, straightalking and alternating between determination and despair as the scale of the deception, corruption, addictions, bereavements and misery become apparent.

The weakest overall link in the series is the Sackler family material, which never quite comes into focus. This was also the case in Dopesick. Perhaps it’s just difficult to fathom and effectively dramatize such bland, blinkered greed. But Painkiller is still mighty potent, another kaleidoscopic call to awareness of a massive public health crisis and the family most responsible for causing it.

Dopesick was brutal, infuriating, and intensely moving, and Painkiller never reaches the same level of humanity and pathos. But the performances are all strong: Aduba delivers cathartic anger and despair as Edie, and Kitsch is dependably empathetic as the everyman who falls victim to what is essentially heroin in a time-release coating.

There are times that Painkiller feels like a cover version of the more atmospheric Dopesick. Nevertheless, it’s thought-provoking, with strong performances (especially from Aduba) and a firm narrative grip on a catastrophe that never stops sounding a grim, shrill alarm.

Netflix’s Painkiller does seem like the Johnny-come-lately of the two, and you may get bouts of déjà vu. Yet there is a buzzy, frenetic, angry momentum to it that, along with judicious use of music, carries you along. Even if certain characters are a little superficially drawn.

Unfortunately, with fewer standout performances and more underdeveloped characters in Painkiller, this new Netflix series doesn't draw you in as much as its Disney Plus rival - making for an important but slightly lacklustre drama.

It’s far from a great series, but “Dopesick” wasn’t either, and both eventually settle for telling an important story in an accessible fashion. That “Painkiller” covers the same ground in two fewer hours at least makes it the less taxing option, if you need it.

Much like that other miniseries, “Painkiller” similarly suffers from massive pacing issues and the episodic flitting between a half dozen storylines with only Aduba’s narration to carry us through.

It feels like the pitch for “Painkiller” was “The Big Short” for the opioid crisis, but that near-satirical tone is almost impossible to maintain for six hours across multiple character arcs, some of which never intersect.

Expect to like “Painkiller” while watching it, only to later cringe when thinking about it.

Like a sharper, more technically polished second draft of Hulu’s overstuffed 2021 opioid-crisis ensemble piece Dopesick, it suffers from many of the problems inherent to a genre that’s becoming increasingly popular in Hollywood: the explainer drama.

It’s manipulative as hell, but does have an impact in the moment, because your heart can’t help but break for this person’s pain. And it sells the emotional truth of the heartbreak Oxy gave a nation.

As Painkiller progresses toward its climax, though, its frequent tonal shifts distract from the substance of the story.

Painkiller might be worth watching for anyone who wants to learn about the epidemic. However, far better projects about the crises exist—and this one just comes off as wasted potential.

Fictionalized takes on true stories are a plague. And this overkill of a series starring Matthew Broderick as a Big Pharma drug dealer exaggerates like hell for dramatic purposes. What feels real is the rage over the ongoing opioid crisis.

While “Painkiller’s” creative shortcomings don’t make that fallout any less significant or sickening, unlike those sales reps, the slick packaging here isn’t enough to close the deal.

Despite their talents, a cumbersome script with all of its subjects and plot points is too much for the performers to overcome.

It’s hard to reconcile that tone with the flippancy with which Painkiller chronicles the rise and fall of the Sacklers and their company Purdue. Matthew Broderick spoofs patriarch Richard as a cartoonish weirdo.

The show’s emphasis on dazzle comes at the expense of believable characters or nuanced analysis or emotional resonance; one wonders how much more the show might have been had it not spent so much of its time and energy simply trying to convince everyone to look over here in the first place.

After Dopesick, which trod remarkably similar ground, it’s hard to argue that we needed another depiction of the tripartite collusion of pharma, clinicians and victims. This is a story told more comprehensively, convincingly, and, crucially, movingly, elsewhere.

It lacks gravitas and a point of view. At many points, it’s painful to watch. It’s constantly exhausting to watch.

More than anything, Painkiller feels unnecessarily slight in a fundamental sense. Characters are nearly all made superficial and there is a persistent lack of patience that sets the actors up for failure. By the time we get to the end, everything ties itself up a bit too neatly when the truth of this story is far more complicated.

It feels like Painkiller wants to say something profound bout how the opioid crisis was started, but does so in a way that feels completely tone-deaf.